Klamath, California - Memorial To Captain Courageous - Hero Floating Bull

When I was a wee tad (early 70s-ok?), my father dragged the family on a road trip up to Canada from the SF, Bay Area. On our way I recall a pit stop outside a small coastal town (perhaps near Eureka) where the local gas station had a large fenced pasture next to it with a cow in it and a large plaque.

As a younger cow, Captain Courageous, had been swept out to sea nearly 50 miles in a terrible flood some years before and had been found floating on a log or large piece of barn by some local fishermen. They rescued it and towed it back to land, where they decided to tell everyone the story and make a few bucks off it. What town was it? Is the plaque still there? What happened to the cow? [Betty Cunningham, 07/17/1997]

[RA: Captain Courageous, formerly known as Bahamas, was a bull that got caught in a 1964 flood and was washed 16 miles downriver and out to sea. He survived, and lived out his life as a Klamath hero -- a symbol of never-say-die tree-biter toughness. He died in 1983; a plaque on a rock pays him tribute.]