Mill Race Monster Fest in Columbus, Indiana: A new cryptid festival for your cozy fantasy inspiration

Vendor tents surround one of the reservoirs at Mill Race park in Columbus, Indiana for Mill Race Monster Fest.

This past weekend, I attended the very first Mill Race Monster Fest in Columbus, Indiana. The Mill Race Monster hysteria originally happened in November of 1974. During the first week of November, several people reported attacks and sightings of a large ape-like creature with a green face. A group of women even pointed to scratches on their car, claiming the beast had done it. He was spotted in trees, local garages, and even by the park’s iconic covered bridge. By mid-November, monster hunters swarmed the park, causing mass hysteria. You can read the full Mill Race Monster story here.

More than fifty years later, this was the very first year for this festival. It was also Red Bridge’s first even of this kind. All things considered, it was a raging, smashing, blurry, humanoid success. 

A sponsor sign and glow-in-the-dark t-shirts at the Mill Race Monster Fest booth.

Moments that felt like they belonged in a cozy fantasy novel

I don’t usually dress up for Halloween due to financial concerns and a deep phobia of wardrobe malfunctions, but I braved it this year. I found an inexpensive mask with a glittery serpent on it, and it was too much fun to pass up. Why does the snake’s tail have to go through the skull’s nose? I found it hysterical.

On Friday, I was the Grim Sleeper. I had a homemade scythe (made from posterboard, tin foil, tape, and a stick) and I was surprised to catch the attention of a photographer. We’ll see what comes of that. 

Coco wearing a pastel bathrobe and a shiny silver mask and wielding a tin foil scythe.

The second day, I was the Glam Reaper, in a sparkly jumpsuit and pearls. Unfortunately, that costume malfunctioned quite spectacularly. 

At one point when I was manning the Red Bridge booth myself, a little girl came up with a bowl of ice cream and sat on the bench, making herself at home. Several drowsy children did this throughout the night. This one, however, demanded I do some magic. 

“Sorry,” her dad said. “She things everyone here is a magician.”

“Well, then.” I picked up a “unicorn horn” makeup brush I’d been using as a hair stick for my “Grim Sleeper” costume. “Is this my wand then?”

“Yeah?” she said. 

“What kind of magic should I perform?”

At this point I thought to myself, What the heck, what am I doing??? 

But she said, “Make a bat!”

We had a wicker cauldron basket full of toy spiders, so I flourished the wand over it and pulled one of them out. 

I pretended to be huffy and frustrated. “Oh, drat, it’s not a bat, it’s just a spider. I guess I’m not a very good magician.”

She loved it.

On Saturday, my nephews did an entire fascinate over an alien sculpture installation (and it was very difficult to keep them from trying to climb it or fight it). 

The Make-A-Monster activity by Clover Childers!

Helping Red Bridge Writing Community with their Confessions of the Strange booth

The phone that Red Bridge Writing Community used to record local scary stories.

As part of the leadership team for Red Bridge Writing Community, I volunteered to help with their first-ever event booth. We had a red tablecloth and various oddities for decoration, including my tin-foil scythe hanging ominously overhead. 

We collected “Confessions of the Strange.” We asked passersby for their stories about ghosts, close encounters, anything spooky or uncanny. We had parchment-like paper for them to write on, a QR code to a form they could use, and a special recording phone.

We used a small tent like a “phone booth.” When they picked up the receiver, they would hear a message asking for their story. They could then tell the story into the phone and it would record it. 

It felt like collecting local folklore, after a while. I learned an old legend about a bridge in Azalea where a man was beheaded. I learned about a haunted plantation house and even a local daycare that regularly experiences unsettling power abnormalities. Some also told stories about lost loved ones and bad childhoods; we provided some layperson-level emotional support in these moments. 

I was honored to be part of it. 

Story ideas that spun through my head: cozy fantasy and beyond

Artist Abbi Kay paints live at the Jubilee Farm Art Studio booth. She told me how she was going to work in native plants modeled after pictures that Blazing Stars CISMA provided.

I imagined what it would be like for the Mill Race Monster himself to witness this festival in their honor, fifty or so years after being hunted. If they came to pass as an ordinary human, or they were human in the first place, what would they think, so many years later? Would they visit? Would they be upset to find a costumed impersonator taking pictures with kids? 

Would they feel welcomed, accepted, or relieved that they and the world have come so far? Would it be more upsetting or healing? Would it be a chance for them to reunite with any of the original storytellers?

How did those original storytellers feel? I didn’t meet any of them. That would have been cool. I wonder what they make of it, all these years later. 

The original sightings coincided with UFO sightings. Could the Mill Race Monster have been an alien? A government experiment? An operative or fugitive wearing whatever disguise possible? 

In any case, if any of the original players of this story attended, I hope they found it a healing and welcoming place where monsters and Halloween celebrants could roam around happily and freely, eating donuts made from ice cream. 

Therians, animals, monsters, and xenofiction

The Astral Fetch Studios booth at Mill Race Monster Fest.

I know some people in the local therian community, and while I’ve never fully engaged in this world myself, it seems like it can be very cute and sweet. I always think it’s adorable when people wear brightly colored ears or a keychain tail on a belt loop. These people feel a strong enough connection to animals to make it part of their fiction, theater, social life, and sometimes even their spirituality; that doesn’t strike me as the bad thing that some people stigmatize it as. 

Of course, the potential sexual components of these stories need to follow certain consent rules and remain in adult-only spaces, but my impression is that therian communities generally know and enforce this. 

Getting that out of the way, though, it struck me, talking with a therian at this event, how much that community has in common with the cozy fantasy world. Cozy fantasy stories for adults overcome stigmas about play, whimsy, joy, and other elements often considered “childish.” If a child dresses up as a cat and pretends to be a cat, nobody minds. Therians face the same stigma and pursue something similarly cute and fanciful. 

Think about it: The average 14-year-old graduates middle school, and the stories about cute animals having adventures go away at the same time as the uplifting magical stories. From that point on, dark romance dominates every magical space. I found it discouraging and ridiculous as a teenager, and the distance of age has only put it in a more systemic light. 

I’m sure I’ll talk about this more in another post, but for now, let’s decide that the imagination involved in therian culture and stories that explore the minds of animals have a kinship with cozy fantasy novels, cozy science fiction. They all fall under the “cozy speculative” umbrella and bring a defiant kind of joy to the world.