Bardin Booger

Lena Crain dressed as the Bardin Booger. Courtesy of Lena Crain.

The Skunk Ape – Florida’s version of Bigfoot – has been a prominent feature of Florida folklore for decades. Perhaps the most colorful member of this evasive species is the one who patrols the pine woods around a Putnam County logging community with a population of 424: the Bardin Booger.

Sightings of strange things in the Bardin woods go back many decades. Early stories are typical Bigfoot fare, describing a hirsute humanoid stalking trespassers to his forest home. Locals swapped yarns at Bud’s Grocery, an unassuming superette that qualifies as Bardin’s center of town. By 1981, the legend had spread enough to draw the attention of Palatka Daily News publisher Jody Delzell. When an intern needed a topic for a column one day, Delzell suggested Bardin’s beast. It was Delzell who coined the “Bardin Booger” name, “booger” being another term for “boogieman.”

The column drew national attention and within days, news outlets were flocking to Bardin to cover its famous Booger. Locals embraced the attention and amused themselves by taking news crews on wild goose chases in search of the creature. Bud’s Grocery became Booger headquarters, stocking merchandise and maintaining a “Booger file” of all the press it generated. Sightings dried up not long after this spate of coverage, but some locals have kept the legend alive. Local musician Billy Crain wrote a song about the Booger that became popular at local bars, and his wife Lena Crain devised a costume that she’s donned for public appearances for the last four decades.

The Humanzee of Orange Park

Artist’s interpretation of the Humanzee by Sam Scavino.

Unseen and unknown by most in Northeast Florida, from 1930 to 1965, Orange Park was home to one of the largest chimpanzee research operations in the world. Founded by Yale primatologist Robert M. Yerkes, the Yerkes Laboratories of Primate Biology studied subjects such as chimpanzee anatomy, behavior and cognition. Staff didn’t interact much with the locals, for whom the “Monkey Farm,” as they called it, was a place of mystery. Yerkes Laboratories moved to Atlanta in 1965, and the Orange Park property was converted into an office park.

Yerkes Laboratories entered the realm of legend due to a claim that an extremely unorthodox experiment occurred there in its early days. According to University of Albany professor Dr. Gordon Gallup, a colleague who worked at the lab at the time told him that the scientists successfully impregnated a female chimpanzee with human sperm, creating a hybrid “humanzee.” The experiment resulted in a live birth, but the researchers euthanized him shortly thereafter because of the ethical implications of his existence.

The story became embedded in local folklore shortly after Gallup related it in a 2003 documentary about humanzees. There’s no other evidence such an experiment took place, but no matter. It’s firmly part of the legacy of what’s now the most intriguing office park in Florida.

Wiccademous, the witch of Fernandina

One of the few remaining strands of the woods said to be haunted by Wiccademous.

Another of the First Coast’s popular legend tripping destinations is located on Amelia Island. For decades, local teenagers have trekked to a strip of woods across from Fernandina Beach High School that have had a reputation for strange happenings since at least the 1970s.

Early legends about the woods apparently didn’t involve a witch; the original draw was “Shaky Ground,” a spot where it was said that the earth would quake beneath a visitor’s feet. Some locals attributed this to an old underground drainpipe, while others preferred a supernatural explanation. Eventually, a story emerged that the rumbling was caused by Wiccademous, the angry, improbably-named spirit of a girl executed for witchcraft in the 17th century and buried beneath an oak tree. This farrago of witchy tropes exploded in popularity after it first appeared online in 2002, becoming cemented in local folklore. In 2019, the land was controversially sold off for a new subdivision, but teenagers still trek to what’s left of the woods in hope of encountering Wiccademous.

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