This tiny NC town is where to go for ‘Bigfooting’ — and for a haunted museum

If you think of Bigfoot as a species, not a charismatic uniquity like the Loch Ness Monster, then it makes sense there would be more than one.

Bigfooters believe there may be several just in North Carolina, and the possibility is enough to support a cottage creature-hunting industry that spans the state.

The Halifax County community of Littleton now has the most diversified Bigfoot business model, centered around the Cryptozoology & Paranormal Museum in a rehabbed Main Street storefront. Owner Stephen Barcelo started the museum after relocating from Long Island, N.Y., with his wife and daughter to try out semi-retirement in a warmer climate with better land values.

A longtime journalist, he planned to make documentaries to pay for the travel he wanted to do, but once the family settled in Littleton, Barcelo found the biggest story was in his own backyard.

Well, a neighbor’s backyard.

That’s where a Littleton woman said she saw a creature running through the woods that wasn’t like any she had ever seen: huge, with long hair, but not a bear or a coyote.

That was in 2016. Barcelo has since collected many people’s reports of brushes with Bigfoot, has organized trips to nearby Medoc Mountain State Park and to private tracts of land to go “Bigfooting” (think birding, with lower odds) and collected enough memorabilia to warrant moving his museum from the front two rooms of his historic home in Littleton to the larger Main Street location.

A haunted paranormal museum? Makes sense.

The museum, “dedicated to the study and display of creatures and phenomena not recognized by traditional science,” is open 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. daily, but if you’re running early or late, call and Barcelo likely will adjust his hours.

Admission is $5 for adults, $2 for children, and Barcelo says depending on your level of interest in Bigfoot, UFOs and ghosts, a tour of the museum can take 20 minutes or two hours.

The business struggled during the COVID-19 pandemic. “You couldn’t really argue that a Bigfoot museum is an essential business,” Barcelo said, so he shut down.

He reopened in the new location about a year ago, but for a while, he said, he seemed to have more visitors from the building’s many past uses than its present. Several people, he said, have stopped in to make offers on his and his employees’ vehicles parked outside, thinking the business was still a used-car lot.

And then there are the spirits that haunt the building, Barcelo says; he and others say they’ve heard the voice of a child and the sound of doors opening or closing and items being tossed about.

Littleton loves Bigfoot

In April, Barcelo held his first Paranormal Bigfoot Festival since the pandemic hit, and more than 200 people attended. Interest is picking up in haunting tours and Bigfooting excursions, which Barcelo organizes on request.

Littleton, less than 90 minutes northeast of the Triangle, has embraced Bigfoot’s potential as a tourist draw, with a new mural on the outside of Barcelo’s building that incorporates the hairy hide-and-seek champion and other local draws.

More businesses have come to town, Barcelo says, and some are capitalizing on cryptozoology; there’s the Bigfoot cookie at Daphne’s Coffee Shop and the Bigfoot Burrito Challenge at San Lucas Mexican Restaurant, a real monster at 9 pounds. It’s a one-person challenge, and if you eat the whole thing in under 20 minutes the burrito is free, plus you get your choice of a Bigfoot hat or T-shirt.

Other NC spots to go Bigfooting

▪ Western North Carolina also loves Bigfoot, and the town of Marion had its annual

Lake James Bigfoot Conference in May. Until the next one rolls around, organizers suggest Bigfooting on the McDowell Greenway along the Catawba River or one of several other trails Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) are said to like.

Since a man visiting from Boone captured a video of something Bigfooty walking casually through tall grass outside Black Mountain in 2015, Bigfoot t-shirts have been popular items in the area, and they can be found online.

▪ To try to glimpse Sasquatch himself, many Bigfooters suggest hiking or camping in the Uwharrie National Forest, about 90 miles southeast of the Triangle. The forest includes several developed campgrounds, and campers have reported shadowy figures in the woods beyond their sites as well as shuffling sounds during the night.

It hasn’t been scientifically proven, but visitors may be more likely to report a sighting after a visit to Bigfoot’s Bar and Grill in Troy. This coming Friday is Karaoke night.