It’s unlikely that you’ve seen an alligator in Sanford, but if you ever have here’s one possible explanation.

So to start, let’s back up to February 1890, when businessman W.H. Smith came to Sanford from Michigan to inspect our large deposits of brownstone, which was at the time being supplied en masse to some of the biggest cities in the United States such as New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia for use in the construction of the homes bearing the name of the supply (many of which stand to this day).

Smith, according to J. Daniel Pezzoni’s The History and Architecture of Lee County, “immediately leased a site southwest of downtown (Sanford) and put 25 stonecutters to work.”

Although it’s unclear exactly where this quarry was located, our best guess is the rolling area along Garden Street which is now home to a mix of older homes and apartments, public housing and multiple parcels of solar panels sandwiched between acres upon acres of thick vegetation. Again, that’s just a semi-educated guess to give this story some context.

Pezzoni’s text goes on to describe the growth of the brownstone industry locally, noting that Smith’s quarry was acquired four years later by another group of Michigan-based investors, who renamed the operation the Aldrich Stone Company.


A photo from the Aldrich Stone Company quarry from 1897, courtesy of J. Daniel Pezzoni’s The History and Architecture of Lee County.

As quarries will do, this one apparently filled up with water over time and began attracting swimmers (the aquatic activity was actually described as “skinny dipping,” adding a layer of scandal to the whole affair), a development the Aldrich Stone Company couldn’t abide.

Here’s where the gators come in.

Four of the creatures were released into the pond as a deterrent.

“‘(The alligators) are doing well,’ the press reported,” according to Pezzoni, “‘and are frequently seen sporting in the water. The small boys will stop bathing in the pond.’”

There’s more history of the Aldrich Stone Company and local quarrying in general in Pezzoni’s account, and it’s plenty interesting, but it feels a little garden variety by comparison after learning that our business leaders of the time not only thought importing vicious wild monsters was the best solution to keep kids out of their swimming hole, but actually did it as well. 

There’s no way to know if the gators, you know, actually got anybody. But it was 1894. There was no Facebook or Nextdoor back then on which to post about the mean old quarry men and their bloodthirsty reptiles.

Google reveals that alligators live between 30 and 50 years in the wild, so it’s likely the ones brought here were dead by the 1930s or so. But we don’t know if four gators is enough to become eight and then 12 and then 20, creating a modern population just waiting in the woods of Sanford to waddle out and devour us all, like those soldiers up in the mountains who didn’t get told for decades that the war had actually ended.

This has veered into irresponsible speculation, but if you’ve got a Sanford gator story, the above is as good an explanation as any. If you’ve got such a tale, get in touch with gordon@rantnc.com, and whatever else you do, be careful out there.

— Gordon Anderson