George Singleton tells of field trip to 'Indian Potato Hill' near Frisco City

"Indian Potato Hill" as it looked in 2006.

(For decades, local historian and paranormal investigator George “Buster” Singleton published a weekly newspaper column called “Somewhere in Time.” The column below, which was titled “Indian Potato Hill: It may be growing” was originally published in the May 11, 1972 edition of The Monroe Journal in Monroeville, Ala.)

The evening was hot as Fred Brake, James Qualls and myself left the intersection at Caines store below Frisco City and headed west. We were going to look at a peculiar rock formation that Qualls had contacted me about earlier.

We left the struck and started out on foot, across a section of cut-over timber land that had been stripped of just about every growing tree. We descended a hill and started across the bottom below. In the distance, we could see an odd-shaped formation of rock rising to about 50 feet in the air and about 100 feet long. At a distance it resembled a huge oversized potato that had been dropped on the ground by a passing jolly green giant.

We climbed to the top, where we noticed that instead of one huge rock, there was a series of many smaller rocks of many colors and shapes. Along the sides were several larger boulders that had separated from the main formation and rolled down the slope.

We discussed at random why the rocks had broken away from the main body. As we began to observe more closely, we could see that the earth was loose around the base of the formation structure. This gave the impression that the rock table on which we were standing might be slowly rising. This could be the cause of the breaking away of the smaller rocks from the main formation. Deep underground pressure could be forcing this structure slowly out of the ground as the years pass.

Unless measurements were taken and accurate readings recorded periodically, one would never be aware that the change was taking place. Even if this formation was rising at only one half an inch each 100 years, this would mean that it has elevated five inches in a thousand years, more of less.

As one stands atop the formation and looks at the many colors and shapes that the underground pressure apparently has pushed into our surroundings, we can vaguely grasp the birth of our high mountain ranges. The great amounts of pressure that it took to do this is almost impossible to comprehend.

In all our discussion and speculation about this phenomenon of nature, we didn’t once get around to speculating on how the formation got its name. Somewhere, way back through the years, someone pinned the name “Indian Potato Hill” on this pile of lava rock. And to the untrained eye, that is what it resembles; nothing more, nothing less.

[The column above was accompanied by a photo by Singleton that bore the following heading and caption – “Hill stirs curiosity: Fred Brake and James Qualls, both of Goodway Junction, examine rock composition of Indian Potato Hill.]

(Singleton, the author of the 1991 book “Of Foxfire and Phantom Soldiers,” passed away at the age of 79 on July 19, 2007. A longtime resident of Monroeville, he was born to Vincent William Singleton and Frances Cornelia Faile Singleton, during a late-night thunderstorm, on Dec. 14, 1927 in Marengo County, graduated from Sweet Water High School in 1946, served as a U.S. Marine paratrooper in the Korean War, worked as a riverboat deckhand, lived for a time among Apache Indians, moved to Monroe County on June 28, 1964 and served as the administrator of the Monroeville National Guard unit from June 28, 1964 to Dec. 14, 1987. He was promoted from the enlisted ranks to warrant officer in May 1972. For years, Singleton’s columns, titled “Monroe County history – Did you know?” and “Somewhere in Time” appeared in The Monroe Journal, and he wrote a lengthy series of articles about Monroe County that appeared in Alabama Life magazine. It’s believed that his first column appeared in the March 25, 1971 edition of The Monroe Journal. He is buried in Pineville Cemetery in Monroeville. The column above and all of Singleton’s other columns are available to the public through the microfilm records at the Monroe County Public Library in Monroeville. Singleton’s columns are presented here each week for research and scholarship purposes and as part of an effort to keep his work and memory alive.)