How big was the largest alligator ever killed or captured in Monroe County?

Stokes Alligator at Miller's Ferry, Alabama.

One day last week, I heard that the Miller’s Ferry Resource Office in Wilcox County had reopened to the public after being closed for nearly two years due to the Coronavirus. Many in the reading audience will know that this office is where the world-famous Stokes Alligator is kept on display.

The Stokes Alligator is the Safari Club International’s world-record holder. It’s 15 feet, nine inches long and tipped the scales at 1,011.5 pounds. The alligator was captured in Wilcox County on the night of Aug. 16, 2014 by a team of gator hunters led by Mandy Stokes of Thomaston.

Dozens of times over the years, my son James and I have discussed this gigantic gator and what it must have been like to haul it in. We’d read that the Stokes team was in a 17-foot aluminum boat on the night of their famous hunt, and we could only imagine what it was like to hook half a ton of angry reptile. When we heard that the resource office had reopened, we decided to take a little field trip on Friday afternoon to see the Stokes Alligator for ourselves.

As you would expect from the world-record holder, this alligator is massive and to say that it is an impressive sight is a huge understatement. There is no substitute for seeing it yourself, and if you’ve never seen it in person, it is well worth the drive up to Miller’s Ferry.

On the way home, I got to wondering if any large alligators had ever been killed in Monroe County. Back in Monroeville, I delved into the back issues of The Monroe Journal and the earliest reference to a local alligator that I could find was in the Jan. 22, 1886 edition. That paper reported that “some time last month, Dr. Lee and Percy Driesbach, living near the mouth of Little River, captured an alligator nine and one-half feet in length. It was in a torpid state and entirely harmless.”

Several years later, in the Oct. 4, 1889 edition of The Journal, it was reported that J.B. Downs had killed an alligator a few weeks before that was over seven feet long.

In the July 27, 1911 edition of the newspaper, in news from the Peterman community, readers learned that “some of the boys report having seen an alligator on Brushy Creek recently, eight feet in length.”

A few weeks later, in the Aug. 10 edition, it was reported that Ernest Biggs, Tiney Helton, Raymond Helton, Elbert Biggs and W.R. Helton had killed an alligator on Brushy Creek, between Burnt Corn and the Glendale community. “The gator measured six feet, five inches in length. Mr. W.R. Helton exhibited the left hind foot of the varmint on the streets of Monroeville last Friday.”

Last, but not least, the June 8, 1950 edition of The Journal carried a front-page photo of an alligator that Floyd Watson of Claiborne captured in a creek near Mt. Pleasant on May 25. That alligator was five feet long and weighed about 100 pounds. Journal photographer Max McAliley took a picture of the alligator on the courthouse lawn while it was being transferred to a fish pond belonging to Fred Sheffield on Drewry Road.

In the end, I’d like to hear from anyone in the reading audience with information about any large alligators in Monroe County. It would be interesting to know if there is any documentation of a local alligator longer than nine and a half feet. I doubt that there’s ever been one as big as the Stokes Alligator, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility.