Hardware bear gets famous

A bear who visited Coulee Hardware has received some national attention.

The bear, reported to police as being in Coulee Hardware’s outside, fenced-in storage area at 8:53 p.m. on May 6, had escaped the area by the time police arrived.

Soon thereafter, the bear had gone to Third Street and Burdin Boulevard where the animal had climbed a tree. Police told the reporting party, who had a truck and headlights pointed at the tree and bear, to turn the headlights off and to leave the area to allow the animal to continue on its way in the hopes it would head out of town.

The police stayed in the distance to wait for the bear to leave and noticed it was gone shortly thereafter.

Upon hearing about the visitor, Coulee Hardware owner Kerry Higgins reviewed the security video, which showed the bear running straight into the front doors of Coulee Hardware.

Higgins posted the video clip on the Coulee Hardware Facebook page. The clip currently has 8,700 views.

KHQ (Spokane NBC) then reposted the video on their Facebook page, which currently has 24,000 views after KHQ played the video on the 5 o’clock news. Higgins said that other news outlets, including ABC World News, and WGN in Chicago, have since also used the clip. People enjoy the clip because it offers viewers “a little bit of comic relief,” as Higgins put it.