(Historic) Tom Page
From Loren Coleman
On January 24, 2020, the news spread through the Bigfoot community that Tom Page, 91, passed away on Thursday, January 23, 2020. Page was born on June 2, 1928, in Plainesville, Ohio. He owned and operated P&M Supply Co., a wholesale builder’s supply business started by his father. Tom Page became a successful real estate developer and home builder throughout Lake County, Ohio.
A life-long Ohioan, Page was a graduate of Mentor High School, and served in World War II in the Army, under General Douglas MacArthur in the Pacific Island.
Tom Page’s love of the outdoors extended to his interest in true adventures, hunting, and being a licensed pilot. He was an avid reader and prolific correspondent.
Page of Chardon, Ohio, was a supporter of Pacific Northwest Bigfoot expeditions from 1969 through the mid-1970s.
A businessman and real estate developer in Ohio, he was first attracted to Bigfoot due to a magazine article in 1959 (probably one of Ivan T. Sanderson’s pieces on the Bluff Creek sightings of 1958).
Earlier, Tom Page wanted to join a British group searching for the Yeti, but was turned down because he lacked experience.
Finally, after the Patterson-Gimlin footage was taken in 1967, he contracted Roger Patterson to hunt Bigfoot. That effort was cut short because Patterson got sick and died of cancer in 1972.
According to an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer of December 15, 1972, “Page is the principal backer of a three-year, $75,000 search in the Pacific Northwest for a 10-foot-tall, gray creature that leaves a footprint about 20 inches long – hence the name Bigfoot.”
The article detailed that in 1971, “Page got in touch with a group conducting a search for the creature . Heading the hunt is Peter Byrne, an Irish-born, big-game hunter who has spent most of his life hunting tigers, elephants and water buffalo in the jungles and highlands of India and Nepal. He has also searched for Nepal’s ‘Abominable Snowman.’”
Tom Page was quoted as saying, at the time: “It becomes pretty much of a treasure hunt. Some people get satisfaction diving for old galleons or searching for gold mines. This is even more exciting to me because it’s an undetermined situation.”
Page told reporter Lou Mio, “I don’t think it has been proven beyond a doubt that the creature does not exist – not to my satisfaction. Evidence keeps coming in strong enough to keep us searching.”
Tom Page went on the hunt with Byrne’s crew several times, and backed the “no kill” approach to proving Bigfoot.
Ohio-made millionaire Tom Page is a name you might not have heard often in the search for Sasquatch. He, however, is one of the quiet supporters of the search for Bigfoot in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He served an important role in the early days of the search for Sasquatch, as he was the quiet supporter of the hunt for Bigfoot after Texas oilman Tom Slick died. Page contracted services from Roger Patterson and Dennis Jensen, followed by a contract and monies going to Peter Byrne, from 1969-1973. He was the man behind the scene in getting Bigfooters, like Rene Dahinden, to Bossburg and the man who had the money to flush out supposed Bigfoot films by Ivan Marx and Joe Metlow.
A few years ago the International Cryptozoology Museum was happy to announce the exhibition of parts of Tom Page’s collection, the complete acquisition of which occurred in 2014. The Tom Page Bigfoot archives and artifacts allows us, with a snapshot of the sense of those times, to open a door to the past.
The men using this dart gun, a cap-chur gun, felt they were on the verge of obtaining a Bigfoot. Tom Page bought this gun from the factory. All the paperwork indicates it was sold to Page directly as a “Harrington Richardson 32 gauge special Cap-Chur Powder Projector,” in 1969.
Tom Page of Ohio supplied this dart gun, the helicopter, the money, and pushed along the search, contractually and in a business-like fashion. This history was almost lost.
We congratulated and promoted him at the Ohio Bigfoot Conference for an award, for it was Tom Page who fulfilled the mission of cryptozoology and the Museum with his generous donation of these artifacts (not the helicopter, of course, but much evidence of what he did)
On exhibit at the International Cryptozoology Museum are the cap-chur gun carried by Page, Patterson, and Byrne as they got nearer and nearer to taking down a Bigfoot, scientifically and humanely, for study. It was a “live-capture” approach, not a “kill and prove it” one.
Goodbye and R.I.P. to Tom Page. A great gentleman in the field.
Personal details released in his Cleveland Plain Dealer obituary:
Survivors include his children: John F. Page, Janis Realegeño, Kimberly (Thomas) Hamilton, Karen Berberat, and Kristin (Gregg) Forstyk, stepchildren: Laurel (Jeff) Gerrick, Daphne (Scott) Smyers and Sandra Rutkosky; 18 grandchildren; 13 great-grandchildren and 1st wife: Mary L. Williams. Preceding Tom in death are his 2nd wife: Janet R. Page; step-son: Guy Gibbs; parents: Maynard and Helen Page and sister: Nancy Wright.
The family will receive friends from 4:00 – 7:00 pm Thursday, January 30, 2020, at Brunner Sanden Deitrick Funeral Home & Cremation Center, 8466 Mentor Ave., Mentor, Ohio 44060. A funeral service will be 11:00 am Friday, January 31, 2020, at the funeral home. Interment will be in Mentor Cemetery, Mentor, Ohio.
