![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2026\/04\/OWLL-200x200.jpg\")
KILGORE – After 50 years, a long-standing mystery at the Kilgore Public Library has finally come to an end.
\nSince the mid-1970s, the identity of the owl bandit and the location of the wooden \u201cOwl of Wisdom\u201d have remained unknown. The entire city has been curious about who took the owl that once sat at the library\u2019s east entrance.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the 1960s, we\u2019d\u00a0go to the library, study and have things going on, and I remember we all talked about the owl out there. It was just one of those things that was there. Then one day it disappeared,\u201d T. Anderson, a former Kilgore Bulldog, said. <\/p>\n
The man who reportedly stole it, Steve Blunt, died a few years ago, but it was his wish for the owl to be returned to the library.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means so much\u00a0to us because we\u2019ve always heard stories about this owl, but we\u2019ve never seen it. We only have one picture of it and it\u2019s very grainy. It\u2019s very hard to see what the owl looks like, so we had always just wanted to see it, wanted to see what it looked like,\u201d Kilgore Public Library Director, Stacey Cole said.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t the only owl taken; a second was donated, and it was stolen as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s always\u00a0somebody that ruins it, you know it, kids, kids doing their little things. We did things, but we weren\u2019t destructive. We don\u2019t think we were,\u201d Anderson said.
\nAs for the original sculpture, Anderson is glad that the symbol of education and wisdom can look over the next generation, but maybe now from the inside.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s\u00a0hex on that deal, but put it in that, probably the best thing,\u201d Anderson said.
\nA third owl is inside the library and staff say they\u2019d love to have all three owls together. The library said they hope whoever stole the second one would bring it home to roost with no questions asked. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KILGORE – After 50 years, a long-standing mystery at the Kilgore Public Library has finally come to an end. Since the mid-1970s, the identity of the owl bandit and the location of the wooden \u201cOwl of Wisdom\u201d have remained unknown. The entire city has been curious about who took the owl that once sat at … Continue reading The \u2018Owl Bandit\u2019 case solved<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":1493480,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2026\/04\/OWLL-200x200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1493407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-06 20:18:26","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2026\/04\/OWLL-200x200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1493407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1493407"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1493407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1493525,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1493407\/revisions\/1493525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1493480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1493407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1493407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1493407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}