This week marks the 50th anniversary of Tom Slick’s most organized, first San Antonio Zoo-sponsored expedition in search of the Yeti. It was formally called the Slick-Johnson Snowman Expedition.

Via a feature giving a flashback of 50 years ago, the Los Angeles Times reprinted an old Matt Weinstock column, from the reporter who was sort of the “Herb Caen of Los Angeles.”

In this passage, Weinstock talked of the Abominable Snowman and Tom Slick, thus giving a good period view of one newspaper columnist’s way of dealing with the event.

Matt Weinstock (You gotta love Weinstock’s 1950s’ haircut.)

The following is what Weinstock wrote for February 12, 1958, about the Yeti search.

A while back the big thing was to scale Mt. Everest first.

Recently it was a race between two teams to reach a rendezvous in the Antarctic. Sputniks and outer space need not be mentioned.

Now the contest is on to find the Abominable Snowman.

A dispatch from Katmandu, Nepal, states an expedition sponsored by Texas oilman Tom Slick will start the trek into the Himalayas today in an effort to beat a Russian search party.

This is only a voice in a blizzard but I keep wondering why they don’t leave the Abominable Snowman alone. Why invade his privacy? If he wants to remain aloof and abominable, I say let him. ~ Matt Weinstock, February 12, 1958.

Tom Slick (above) was most famous for his expeditions in search of the Abominable Snowmen or Yeti, mostly in Nepal.