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| Looking north at 'Booger Bottom' on County Road 5. |
During the past week, I finally managed to pinpoint the
exact location of “Booger Bottom.”
Many of you will remember reading in this space a couple of
weeks ago that a woman dropped by the newspaper office to say that she’d been
reading all the local Bigfoot reports with great interest. She said that all of
these tales reminded her of when she was a young girl growing up around Burnt
Corn and Green Street, back when older members of the community would scare
children with stories about a place they called “Booger Bottom.” Supposedly,
something lived in the woods there that would carry you off if you lingered too
long in that area.
This woman said that the best she could remember “Booger
Bottom” was located on County Road 5 in the three-mile stretch between the Old
Watkins House at Burnt Corn and Ramah Church near Pine Orchard. She said she
used to be so scared of this location that even when she got old enough to
drive, she would drive a little faster to get through that area, especially at
night.
I began to ask around about “Booger Bottom” and was
surprised by how many people from the Burnt Corn area had heard of this
mysterious spot in the road. Thanks to Mary McKinley and her older brother,
William Cater, I was able to pinpoint the exact location of “Booger Bottom,”
and I even made a field trip out there last Thursday afternoon to see it for
myself. According to McKinley and Cater, “Booger Bottom” was located about 100
yards south of the Salter Monument on County Road 5.
Cater said that before County Road 5 was paved, there was a
hill about where the Salter Monument is currently located between Burnt Corn
and Ramah Church, and this hill went downhill a bit in the direction of Burnt
Corn. Mary said she remembered her grandfather calling it “Booger Man’s
Bottom.”
Last Thursday afternoon, while the internet was out all over
Evergreen, I hopped in the truck and rode back out to this area to see “Booger
Bottom” for myself. Based on McKinley and Cater’s directions, I determined that
“Booger Bottom” is four-tenths of a mile north of the Old Watkins House on
County Road 5. If you pass this house, going north, you’ll notice that you’re
traveling up a small hill as the road curves slightly to the east. Where this
curve begins is “Booger Bottom.”
If you travel through the curve, you’ll come upon the Salter
Monument about two-tenths of a mile later. It’s on the east side of the road
and if you pull over and look back toward Burnt Corn, you’ll realize that
you’re looking slightly downhill. This has to be the small hill that was cut
down during the paving operation years ago.
As I stood there last Thursday, I couldn’t help but think
about some of the other things that people had told me about “Booger Bottom.”
Many of these people mentioned an entity called “Hairy Bill,” who supposedly
lived at “Booger Bottom.” Some say that “Hairy Bill” was a fictitious character
created by older adults in the community to keep small children from playing in
and around the logging woods.
McKinley also said that she remembered her grandmother
telling a story of an unusual happening near “Booger Bottom.” Her grandmother
was walking down the road close to “Booger Bottom” when she encountered a man
with a small, solid white dog. This man was apparently a stranger in the
community, and his presence could never be explained.
Linda Lambert also said that she remembered not wanting to
travel through “Booger Bottom” at night because it used to give her “an
all-over creepy feeling” when she was a little girl.
“We never heard of Bigfoot back then, and I never saw
anything but a ball of fire once in a tall tree when mama, daddy and I came
home late from a relative`s house,” she said. “We never knew what that was. It
just sat up there in the tree.
“It was just plain creepy, traveling thru that area,”
Lambert continued. “I asked a local man from that area why that stretch of road
was so creepy, and he knew I was talking about Booger Bottom. My dad used to
tell about going through the area back in the 1920s, and the horse spooked and
would not go on down the road. He said something white crossed the road in
front of them and disappeared.”
In the end, I appreciate everyone who provided me with the
information needed to pinpoint the exact location of “Booger Bottom.” I think
it’s important to document things like this for future generations, so that
they will not be forgotten. If anyone else in the reading audience has any
information they’d like to share about strange events in and around “Booger
Bottom,” please let me hear from you.
