FIELD FILE · HERRINGTON-LAKE-MONSTERLAKE & SEA MONSTERLOCAL LEGEND
Herrington Lake Monster
Also known as Herrington Lake Eel-Pig, Eel-Pig
A fast, eel-bodied creature with a pig-like snout said to swim in Herrington Lake, Kentucky’s deepest lake, made famous by a professor in the 1970s.
Herrington Lake is a long, winding reservoir in the limestone gorge of the Dix River in central Kentucky, created in 1925 when Kentucky Utilities built Dix Dam for hydroelectric power. With a maximum depth of about 249 feet it is the deepest lake in the state, and its steep cliffs, narrow coves and dark water have given rise to one of Kentucky’s few lake-monster legends.
According to local tradition, people around the lake began describing something strange in the water not long after it filled in the 1920s. The story gained real attention in the early 1970s, when Lawrence S. Thompson – a University of Kentucky classics professor and former director of the university’s libraries, who kept a house on the lake – said he had seen an unusual animal there more than once. In a newspaper interview he reportedly took care to say it was a “monster” only in the sense that an alligator would seem one to someone who had never seen an alligator.
Thompson and later witnesses described an animal around 15 feet long with an eel-like body, speckled skin like a fish, a short upturned snout like a pig’s, and a curled tail held above the water. It was said to swim as fast as a motorboat. The odd combination earned it the nickname “Eel-Pig.”
The legend has remained small and local – a campfire and marina story rather than a tourist industry – but it surfaces regularly in Kentucky folklore collections and lists of American lake monsters, helped along by the lake’s unusual depth and its reputation for big fish.
- Status
- Local legend
- First reported
- 1920s
- Best-known location
- Herrington Lake, Mercer, Garrard and Boyle counties, Kentucky
- Also called
- Herrington Lake Eel-Pig, Eel-Pig
- Reported in
- Kentucky
What witnesses describe
About 15 feet long, with a slender, eel-like body, speckled or mottled skin, a blunt pig-like snout and a curly tail that sometimes shows above the surface. Witnesses describe it moving very fast through the water.
Where and when it’s seen
The deep, cliff-lined main channel and coves of Herrington Lake on the Dix River in central Kentucky, mostly reported in the warm boating months.
Notable sightings
- 1925The lake fills Dix River, Kentucky
Dix Dam was completed and the river valley flooded to form Herrington Lake. Local lore holds that the first strange sightings came soon after the water rose.
- 1972A professor’s sightings Herrington Lake, Kentucky
University of Kentucky professor Lawrence S. Thompson said he had seen the creature on several occasions from his lake home. His account, given to a Louisville newspaper, is the basis of most later descriptions.
What could explain it?
- Large native fish such as gar, paddlefish or big catfish can look long and serpentine when glimpsed swimming near the surface.
- A swimming feral or domestic pig – or a pig-snouted fish like a paddlefish – could explain the “pig-like” face.
- An escaped or released alligator has been suggested as an occasional out-of-place animal, though none has been documented in the lake.
- Boat wakes, floating logs and the lake’s dark, deep water make misjudging size and shape easy, and some observers suspect the story began as a joke that took on a life of its own.
Legend, culture and tourism
The Eel-Pig is a quirky part of central Kentucky lake lore, retold at marinas and in books and websites about regional monsters and American lake creatures. It is often paired with Kentucky’s better-known legends, such as the Pope Lick Monster and the Kelly–Hopkinsville Goblins.
Places to visit
Marinas around the lake offer boat rentals and fishing – the best way to see the cliffs and deep coves where the creature is said to swim.
Where it’s reported
Herrington Lake Monster in the news
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Sources
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