With shows like Unsolved Mysteries, Fact or Fiction and Real TV, we may not get too excited about the search for a big turtle. But in 1949, it was a major news item.

In March of that year, the search began for Oscar, The Beast of Busco, a turtle so giant you could set out dinner for eight on his back, with a mouth so large he could eat a soccer ball.

You might think this was a story that interested a few yokels down at the local brew dispensary. But radio and newspapers across the nation fell in love with the story. It’s been said that Jim Kirtley, editor of the Tri-County Truth put the story on the wire first. Some European papers even picked it up.

The story began in July 1948 when two men from Churubusco, Ora Blue and Charley Wilson, went fishing in Fulk Lake on Gale Harris’ property. When they finished, they told Harris about a giant turtle they’d seen.

According to Churubusco resident Rusty Reed, a turtle expert, the original report was a hoax. He bases that on a conversation he had with Blue.

“Charley Wilson was known to tell tall tales and Gale Harris was known to believe anything,” Reed says.

So when the newspaper reported the sighting of a large turtle on Harris’ farm, the two fishermen enjoyed a big laugh. Except that Harris now claimed to have seen the turtle himself, and it was every bit as big or bigger than Wilson and Blue had reported.

This wasn’t the first time a large turtle had been sighted in Fulk Lake. The original owner of the property, Oscar Fulk, claimed to have spotted a giant turtle in 1898. Another sighting came in 1914.

During the first days of March 1949, Harris saw the turtle again. A group of townspeople suggested capturing it, and according to newspaper reports they just about caught Oscar on the first day. A trap of stakes and chicken wire penned the beast in about 10 feet of water. A movie (now apparently vanished) showed the turtle swimming just below the surface. But you don’t catch a legend that easily. Oscar flexed some muscle and waltzed out of the trap.

On March 7, the Columbia City newspaper reported the search. The next day, reporters from Fort Wayne showed up. One was a young reporter from United Press International, who sent the story across the wires.

Timing is everything, and the timing was perfect for such a story. With America between wars and all the Nazi war criminals tried, Americans were ready for a happy story. On March 9, newspapers across the nation ran the story of the giant turtle.

The Fort Wayne newspapers, though, derived more enjoyment poking fun at Churubusco for believing in such a beast. They jokingly named him “Oscar” (perhaps after Oscar Fulk) and “The Beast of Busco. The names stuck. Harris didn’t find any of it particularly amusing. In fact, his reputation was being questioned, so he began searching in earnest for the turtle. It was then that the whole affair took on a circus-like atmosphere.

On March 12, 200 people traveled to Harris’ farm to watch the search. The next day, bumper-to-bumper traffic wound around Churubusco to the farm while planes flew overhead, hoping for a glimpse of Oscar. By March 14, 3,000 visitors  including on-the-spot media reporters trampled across Harris’ property. It soon became impossible to tell the truth from fiction of what was happening in the search.