When people picture Bigfoot, they usually picture the Pacific Northwest. But one of the busiest Bigfoot states in America is Ohio, and Ohio's Bigfoot has its own name: the Grassman.
What is the Ohio Grassman?
The Grassman is Ohio's name for a Bigfoot-like creature. According to a Perry County Tribune feature on the legend, descriptions vary widely: 5 to 10 feet tall, 300 to 1,000 pounds, with long dark hair, a heavy odor and, in some accounts, bright orange eyes. That last detail earned it another local nickname, "Orange Eyes."
Why "Grassman"? The Tribune explains that the name comes from the large dens it is supposedly built out of grass, and from stories that it feeds on tall grass from Ohio fields. Some people treat the Grassman as a regional type of Bigfoot. Others say it's simply what Ohioans call their Bigfoot.
The 1978 Minerva Monster
The most famous Grassman story comes from near Minerva, in Paris Township, Stark County, in August 1978. Minerva is a small village, with 3,684 people at the 2020 census, that sits mostly in Stark and Carroll counties with a sliver in Columbiana County. It's part of the Canton–Massillon metro area, so the Cayton sightings happened in farm and strip-mine country on the edge of a metro region. The best-known write-up is a case report by investigator Ron Schaffner, now hosted on the BFRO website (Report 4977). He and his team interviewed witnesses in September 1978.
Here's a summary of the events as that report describes them:
- Early August 1978: The Cayton family's grandchildren ran inside saying they'd seen a hairy monster in an old strip-mine pit behind the house. Adults who went to look described a dark-haired creature around 7 feet tall and 300 pounds.
- August 21: Family and friends on the porch reported eyeshine near an old chicken coop, then a large, hairy, upright figure. Witnesses said it later appeared outside the kitchen window. They called the Stark County Sheriff's Department. The report says a deputy who arrived noted a strong lingering smell, which he described to reporters as "ammonia-sulphur." Deputies searched the area.
- August 22–23 and September 8: Further sightings were reported around the property and the strip-mine hill.
The report also includes one of the case's strangest details: witnesses said they saw two large cat-like animals with the hairy figure. Schaffner himself wrote that he never could explain that part.
The story drew big crowds. In a later interview quoted by the Tribune, Herbert Cayton recalled 100 to 150 cars in his driveway, on his lawn and lining the road. Understandably, the family stepped back from publicity afterward.
As with every famous case, there's no physical proof. The footprints found were described as unusual but unconfirmed, and skeptics point to misidentified animals, excitement and hoaxing as possible explanations. What's clear is that the Minerva reports made the Grassman a lasting part of Ohio folklore.
The documentary
In 2015, Ohio filmmaker Seth Breedlove made Minerva Monster, the first documentary from his studio Small Town Monsters, based in Wadsworth, Ohio. The film runs 54 minutes. Breedlove has since directed more than a dozen cryptid documentaries and miniseries, including Boggy Creek Monster (2016), The Mothman of Point Pleasant (2017) and The Mothman Legacy (2020). Minerva Monster was where it all started. According to Wikipedia, it features interviews with members of the Cayton family, a former Akron Beacon Journal reporter and a Stark County deputy. It was shot on a budget of about $500 with a $3,000 camcorder, plus a Kickstarter. It premiered at the Ohio Bigfoot Conference at Salt Fork State Park on May 16, 2015.
The Grassman is back in the news: March 2026
Ohio's Bigfoot reputation got a fresh jolt this spring. Starting March 6, 2026, the Bigfoot Society Podcast collected a quick cluster of reports in northeast Ohio, beginning in Mantua Center and moving east through Garrettsville, Windham and Newton Township. NewsNation reported on March 11 that none of the witnesses had photos or video. Host Jeremiah Byron told the station that a cluster like this hadn't happened since the 1970s.
The reports sit right on top of the county that leads Ohio in our dataset, Portage County. We'll keep following the "Ohio flap" and post an update when there's more to report.
Ohio by the numbers
In the public BFRO dataset we use for our sightings map, Ohio has 283 mapped reports. That's second only to Washington among all states, and the most east of the Mississippi. The earliest is from 1956.
Ohio leans a little more toward clear sightings than the country as a whole. Of its 283 reports, 152 are Class A (about 54%) and 131 are Class B (BFRO wording: distant or poor-light views, plus all sound-only reports). Nationally, the split is almost exactly 50/50.
The counties with the most mapped reports:
| County | Mapped reports |
|---|---|
| Portage | 17 |
| Guernsey | 14 |
| Columbiana | 12 |
| Summit | 11 |
| Harrison | 11 |
| Stark | 10 |
Notice the pattern: most are in eastern Ohio, where rolling hills, reclaimed strip-mine land and big state forests and parks (like Salt Fork in Guernsey County) create a lot of wild country.
When Ohio reports happen. Summer is the busiest season, with 106 reports, followed by fall (73), spring (53) and winter (51). By month, August (37), June (35) and July (34) lead, with October (31) close behind. December is the quietest month, with just 9.
Ohio is still active. Ohio's reports climbed decade by decade: 3 in the 1950s, 32 in the 1970s, 46 in the 1990s and a peak of 82 in the 2000s. The state has 74 reports since 2010, fourth in the nation behind Washington, Illinois and Florida. In 2020 and 2021 alone, Ohio logged 18, second only to Washington's 19.
Portage County, the leader, is in northeast Ohio, part of the Akron metro area, with Ravenna as its county seat and Kent as its largest city. It had 161,791 residents in 2020, so like Pierce County in Washington, it's a busy county right next to wooded country.
(Counts are mapped reports in the public dataset through 2021, not total BFRO reports.)
Ohio's Bigfoot events
Ohio doesn't just have sightings. It has a busy Bigfoot event calendar too.
- Ohio Bigfoot Conference, held at Salt Fork State Park near Kimbolton, usually in late April or early May. Event listings say it has run since 1989, which would make it one of the longest-running events of its kind. The 2026 edition is scheduled for May 2–3.
- Hocking Hills Bigfoot Festival, usually in mid-August in southeast Ohio.
- Spirit of the Forest Bigfoot Festival in Celina, usually in late October.
Check the festivals page for current dates.
Visiting Grassman country
- Salt Fork State Park (Guernsey County) is Ohio's largest state park and the home of the Ohio Bigfoot Conference. It covers 17,229 acres of land and 2,952 acres of water, about six miles north of Lore City, and includes the historic Kennedy Stone House, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. Guernsey County is second in Ohio in our dataset, with 14 mapped reports.
- Respect private property. The Minerva sites are on private land, so don't trespass.
- Hocking Hills is a great base for a southeast Ohio trip. Hocking Hills State Park has more than 25 miles of hiking trails, rock formations, waterfalls and recess caves, with trails open dawn to dusk year-round.
- Wayne National Forest is Ohio's first and only national forest, in the state's Appalachian hill country on the unglaciated Allegheny Plateau. Its headquarters sit on US Route 33 between The Plains and Nelsonville, overlooking the Hocking River.
- Plan around trail hours. Parks like Hocking Hills close their trails at dusk, so do your evening listening from a legal campsite.
Want to know what other states call their Bigfoot? See our guide to Bigfoot names by state.
