Case file · Cryptid
The gowrow of Searcy County
On 31 January 1897 the Arkansas Gazette printed a tale that a twenty-foot tusked lizard, the 'gowrow', had been killing livestock near Blanco in Searcy County until a posse shot it in a cave.
1897 CE · 35.98, -92.85 · status: hoax
The account
The story credited a businessman named William Miller with leading the hunt. The Ozark folklorist Vance Randolph later collected gowrow tall tales and believed the name went back to the 1880s.
The sceptical view
Folklorist William M. Clements notes the legend owes more to newspaper invention than to real folk belief; no remains were ever shown.