{"id":31085,"date":"2023-10-21T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-21T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bigfoot-do-you-believe-one-colorado-museum-wants-to-know\/"},"modified":"2023-10-21T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-10-21T12:00:00","slug":"bigfoot-do-you-believe-one-colorado-museum-wants-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bigfoot-do-you-believe-one-colorado-museum-wants-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Bigfoot \u2013 do you believe? One Colorado museum wants to know"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"No
No one\u2019s ever caught one, so the imagination runs wild at The Sasquatch Outpost and Experience in Bailey, as do the assertions of the supposed beast\u2019s looks, stature (including big feet), habits and even scat known as the Tremendous Turd. (Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News)<\/span>Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A decade ago, Jim and Daphne Myers opened a small grocery store in Bailey, about an hour west of Denver, just off U.S. Highway 285.<\/p>\n

Business was slow from the start. Foot traffic was hard to come by in the town of just a couple thousand people.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter about two years, we realized the store was not going to work,\u201d Myers recalled. \u201cWe were the ones eating all the groceries.\u201d<\/p>\n

But what Myers lacked in hungry customers, he made up for with a corner of the store dedicated to his personal passion. It was called the \u201cSasquatch Outpost,\u201d and shoppers could put a pin on a map to document where they\u2019ve seen the famous cryptid, Bigfoot.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, we made a decision,\u201d Myers said. \u201cIt was a critical, risky decision to go all the way with Bigfoot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, the Sasquatch Outpost is the main attraction. The bread and eggs are gone. Bigfoot paraphernalia, including T-shirts, magnets, shot glasses, and a wide array of Sasquatch documentaries, rules.<\/p>\n

Myers has had a lifelong fascination with the elusive creature. At 10 years old, he went to the movie theater and saw Legend of the Boggy Creek, a half-documentary, half-staged drama about a Bigfoot-like creature in Arkansas. Ever since then, he\u2019s been searching for proof that Sasquatch is real.<\/p>\n

Since reopening the store as a Sasquatch gift store, Myers said business has grown every year. He and his wife even plan to expand the business upstairs and open a Sasquatch-themed escape room.<\/p>\n

Myers frequently meets other Bigfoot believers who come from all over the country, like Michele Buddy, a Texan who made a point to visit the store after hearing about it in a documentary.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m a huge Bigfoot believer,\u201d she said. \u201cWe were coming to Colorado anyway. I’m like, \u2018There’s a Bigfoot museum in Bailey?\u2019 So, here we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the back of the store, green saloon doors sit below a sign that reads \u201cSASQUATCH ENCOUNTER.\u201d Inside is a small museum dedicated to alleged proof that the elusive Sasquatch walks among us.<\/p>\n

The exhibits, curated by Myers, feature plaster casts of suspected Bigfoot tracks, old newspaper clippings, and even preserved feces that Myers believes couldn\u2019t come from anything but Bigfoot.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what we call \u2018the tremendous turd\u2019,\u201d Myers said, gesturing toward a display. \u201cIt’s a 48 inch piece of feces that we found in the woods about 10 miles from here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The museum also contains a holdover from the original grocery store \u2013 the map, which is still updated with patrons\u2019 sightings. Myers doesn\u2019t let just anyone leave a mark, though.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo get their pin in this map, they have to come into the store, tell me their story, convince me that they’re being truthful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Equipped with this lifelong devotion to Sasquatch, Myers gave his thoughts on the latest viral Bigfoot sighting.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, a couple on the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad in southwestern Colorado captured a video of a purported Sasquatch. While some heralded the video as the latest proof Bigfoot exists, Myers was immediately skeptical.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me it was clearly a hoax,\u201d Myers said. \u201cThe hair was the wrong color, it was shiny. And it’s clearly a costume.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the end of the museum, a motion-activated replica of what Myers believes Bigfoot actually looks like sits shrouded by darkness and real Aspen trees. Its name is The Boss. Anyone who passes is treated to a bone-chilling growl that emanates from a hidden speaker.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s in this final room where visitors are confronted by a sign: \u201cSasquatch: Do you believe?\u201d They\u2019re invited to place a plastic token into one of three boxes, labeled yes, no, or maybe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe correct answer is yes, but you can put it wherever you want,\u201d Myers said.<\/p>\n

He stopped tallying the votes years ago. He knows his truth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

one\u2019s ever caught one, so the imagination runs wild at The Sasquatch Outpost and Experience in Bailey, as do the assertions of the supposed beast\u2019s looks, stature (including big feet), habits and even scat known as the Tremendous Turd. (Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News)Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News A decade ago, Jim and Daphne Myers opened […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[431,120,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-31085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-business-general","tag-colorado","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31085"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=31085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}