Dr. Zeigler and the Penbrook alligator slayer of 1917

In two past episodes, I mentioned a dangerous animal terrorizing Penbrook and Edgemont in 1916.

A reptile from the Florida mud, crawling through Pennsylvania leaves.

An alligator, loose in Spooky Hollow in the fall of 1916, turning a quiet working town into something closer to a frontier settlement overnight.

Boys formed hunting parties. Families kept children inside. Rumors spread faster than facts.

And then, in April of 1917, it ended the way small-town legends often do — not with a sheriff or a soldier, but with a boy from Herr Street and a lucky blow beside a narrow run of water.

But the question that lingered was never really about the alligator.

Who brought it here?

Where did it come from?

And where, exactly, did it escape?

This is the story of the Spooky Hollow alligator of 1916.

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