So- what you may not be able to Google up about the Lake Worth Monster:
Some many years after it's inception, 2 men came forward with confessions on how and why the Lake Worth Monster was created. Lake Worth was created and managed by the US Army Corps of Engineers. The land belonged to the city of Ft.Worth. It was created by damming up the Trinity river to prevent a repeat of the catastrophic flood of downtown Ft.Worth. Generally speaking- the flood was in the 30's and the dam built in the 40's- but I'm shooting from the hip and a shaky memory here-soooooooo...
Anyway- almost no Corps lakes have any development on them other than Corps owned and controlled parks and boat ramps and maybe one or two privately owned marinas. Lake Worth was one of the exceptions as much of the shoreline was developed with lakefront homes. You couldn't own the land however, instead you leased it from Ft. Worth for 99years. You could also build docks.
So here comes the problem. Two ladies decided to fish off a dock. Now technically- this is a public dock.....built on a publicly built and funded reservoir on city land. So the owner could not legally press trespass charges or prevent them from fishing his dock. So he and a friend concocted a scheme to drive them away..
They took a few semi-inflated truck tire tubes and used rope to make a sorta of Lochness looking creature. They anchored a pulley to a cement block 40 yards off the end of the dock and had the other end of the rope under the dock out of view. When the ladies showed up the next day, all they had to do was give the rope some slack......a few jerks and IT'S ALIVE!!!!!!
A great success- the ladies beat a hasty retreat. Now is where it all goes terribly wrong. The next day, the women are back with company. They have told their story and are just hoping for a second siting with witnesses. Now here's where a little forethought and self-control would have been very helpful- BUT- the two couldn't help themselves and the Lake Worth Monster appears again.
Before they knew it- hordes of people were showing up each day to catch a glimpse of the monster. They were having so much fun that it took a while to sink in that they had indeed created a monster. Instead of 2 little old ladies they now had been overrun.
One day a drunk showed up with a shotgun. The pair say the opportunity to put an end to the whole affair and gladly obliged to make the monster appear for slaughter. Unfortunately, the knight in shining shotgun was so drunk and inept that it almost didn't happen, but he eventually slew the great monster.
That solved the two good ol' boys problem- eventually no-one came around anymore looking for the Lake Worth Monster. But far from dead, the seed was planted and a ledgend for decades to come was BORN.
How it morphed into a half-goat, half- man tire chuncking island dwelling beast is anybody's guess. I've fished that lake for 30 years and at this moment, I couldn't tell you wether "goat island" and "Greer Island" are the same or not. But I can tell you there are no goats on goat island or any "Lake Worth Monster"... Of course there is a very logical explanation- the monster ate all the goats and moved on.......So if you're ever camping out and see a car tire flying 500 feet over your tent.........
