Visiting The 2nd Annual Lizardman Festival & SC Button Museum

Greetings & Salutations, Y'all! 

On Saturday, June 1st, my travels once again took me to the small town of Bishopville, South Carolina and the South Carolina Button Museum for the 2nd Annual Lizardman Festival 2019 to kick off this summer of travel blogging.  

The festival itself is little more than a small gathering of people whose hobby includes cryptozoology, the hunt for unknown species and legendary creatures, from Bigfoot (Sasquatch or Skunk Ape) to the Loch Ness Monster, whose existence hasn’t been scientifically proven, but the stories of which none-the-less intrigue some individuals like this blogger.   

I briefly touched on the local legend of the Lizard Man of Scape Ore swamp (also known as the Lee County Lizard Man) in a previous blog post when I visited Lee County with my grandmother Carolyn (RIP) and my youngest brother, Alex. Later next month I will be posting a more detailed account of the Lizard Man legend, and my theories about what people who allegedly witnessed this creature claim they saw. 

Festivals based on paranormal events and local encounters with strange creatures are not unique to Bishopville, South Carolina. Point Pleasant, West Virginia, has an annual Mothman festival.  Flatwoods, West Virginia, has a festival honoring the Braxton County monster. There is also a Western North Carolina Bigfoot Festival in Marion, North Carolina. Roswell, New Mexico has annual events based on the alleged UFO crash in 1947. And every year, you can go to Fouke, Arkansas, to celebrate the Beast of Boggy Creek. 

Nor is the United States alone in this phenomenon. There is a huge tourist industry surrounding Lock Ness, Scotland, U.K., centered around the lake monster that has allegedly been spotted there.

It turns out that legends like this bring in plenty of tourist dollars. According to the Point Pleasant Chamber of Commerce, the Mothman Festival is probably one of the largest economic driver between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Charleston, West Virginia. 

With literally hundreds, if not thousands, of legends of strange creatures, haunted places, and strange phenomenon across the world, tourists and curiosity seekers of all kinds are always bound to turn out to see for themselves. 

This brings us to the 2nd Annual Lizardman Festival, hosted by the South Carolina Button Museum. This event was sponsored by the South Carolina Paranormal Research and Investigations. This small gathering of crypto-hunters, paranormal investigators, and some really talented artists, was an interesting couple of hours that I thoroughly enjoyed. 

When it comes to travel snacks, nothing beats
Chick-O-Sticks.

The nearly 2 hour drive to Bishopville from my home is a pleasant one that took me through several beautiful parts of my home state. Lee County is located along the sand hills and upper coastal plains region, and is a largely rural community. Lots of lovely farmland and corn crops growing along SC Highway 34.

The following are the photos I took of the event, including more photos from inside the Button Museum itself. Enjoy.

Mr. Mark Luncy, author of the books Eerie Florida and
Freaky Florida, giving a presentation on someof the cryptids
and local legends in his part of Dixie.
His work can be seen at: eerieflorida.com.

Astronomer and planetary photographer, Mr. Eric Colley.
He was inviting folks to look at the sun
and sunspots through his telescope.

I totally loved his shirt!

As I departed the Lizardman festival to return home, I stopped at the bridge over Scape Ore Swamp -- the alleged home of the legendary creature. It occurred to me that the very first Lizardman sighting took place just over 30 years ago in June of 1988 on a deserted stretch of road just like this. I didn't really get out of the car as I had a couple years ago when I visited the site with family; I just pulled over long enough to take a photo.

Well folks, let me know what you think of my trip in the comments section below, and also tell me of any similar events of stories you've heard of. Also be sure to check out my upcoming blog post on the legend of the Lee County Lizardman later this month on June 28th -- the anniversary of the first reported sighting.

Have a Wonderful Dixie Day, and y'all come back now, ya hear?

My Trip To Bishopville Part Two -- Landmarks & The Lizard Man

Continuing my little road trip, I took photos of several other important landmarks in Bishopville, South Carolina. 
 

The city of Bishopville watertower.

Lee County, South Carolina is named for Confederate
General Robert E. Lee. Another nod towards the
Confederate historical heritage of Southern culture.

The old cannon shown here in front of the
Confederate Soldiers Monument and Lee County
Courthouse was fired repeatedly in honor of
Lee County's final borders being officially
defined on December 15, 1902.

My brother Alex poses with the big artillery gun
near the Lee County Veterans Museum located next
door to the South Carolina Cotton Museum. 

Following those stops we proceeded north to Lee State Park. Created in 1935, the park was one of sixteen in South Carolina developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Many of the original building are still in use at the park. The park includes swampland around the Lynches River. 

Archaeological studies done at the park show that the area was once occupied by the Catawba Indians and several other Native American tribes between 6000 BC and 1000 AD. 

Again, no Lizard Man. No Skunk Ape. No other unknown species. We did however discover several known animal and insect species that were just as fascinating. Not to mention plenty of interesting plants and lots and lots of Spanish Moss. 

A beautiful example of Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia). 

An amazing find. An Cicada that I found hanging out on
a tree near the trail. This particular breed is an annual
type that shows up every year during the summer
and early fall months.

A Common Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina) that I found
driving along toward the main parking area of Lee State Park.

Probably the best find of the trip. A beautiful Luna Moth (Actias luna)
I found sitting on a park bench. Note that part of its tail is missing.

A Katydid (Tettigoniiade) found resting on the bark of
a tree near the trail. 

I found several of this breed of Dragonfly at Lee State Park.

A species of (Eastern) Black Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio polyxenes)
fluttering among the flowers along the trail.

After walking a pretty amazing half-mile trail through the thickly wooded swampland, we enjoyed a packed lunch and then returned to the car. My grandmother was getting tired and the weather was starting to turn cloudy. Rain was coming and with it the end of anymore outdoor sight seeing. 

Our trip to Bishopville we came from Interstate 95. I decided to take different route home on SC 34 for the return trip to Chester County. This would take us over the Scape Ore Swamp bridge - the place where the Lizard Man is alleged to come from.

Me and Alex got out of the car at the bridge and looked around a moment. I walked over and looked down into the dark, tree-covered swampland beneath. Almost anything could have been down there. 

Snakes? Yes. 

Gators? Yes. 

Snapping Turtles? Probably. 

A seven foot reptilian humanoid monster that chases and damages cars and trucks? Not likely.

But who can say for sure. 

Crytozoology is one of my more tongue-in-cheek passions. 

While this blogger loves the really amazing idea that an ancient long-necked Plesiosaur inhabits the depths of Scotland's Loch Ness, (or even lakes closer to home) or that the woodlands in North America are inhabited by a huge missing link between humans and primates, or that a Mothman actually warned people about the collapse of the Silver Bridge; I am personally inclined to want better proof than just a few fuzzy, out-of-focus photos and dubious "footprints" found in the woods. 

That is not to say that I don't accept the idea of these creatures. I believe that some of the eyewitnesses to these alleged crytpid sightings and events see something at any rate. While 95 percent of such sightings turn out to be false, or deliberate hoaxes, there are still that five percent that fall under the category of the unexplained. Mostly likely an animal already known to us (or even a new species) mixed in with a whole lot of active human imagination to fill in the blanks.

Still, there are new species still being discovered all the time on this planet we share. Many of them once thought to be hoaxes, or forklore, sometimes prove to have aspects of the truth to their existence. Sometimes creatures once thought to be extinct suddenly turn up very much alive: the Coelacanth being a good example.  

Those facts alone allow this blogger to keep a somewhat open mind about the possibilities of the existence of legendary creatures, while the stubborn scientific-minded part of my brain wants to find and build evidence for their existence rather than go on simple faith alone.

The Bishopville Lizard Man is as much as product of local folklore and tourism attraction to sell t-shirts and drum up business for the local economy of a small rural community.

As much as I personally love the idea of creatures like Lizard Man, Bigfoot, Nessie, Mothman, ect. I have to accept that the wild ideas about what they are are simply that. Could they be based on some real creature? That much of a possibility I can keep an open mind about. 

For example, the stories about lake monsters like Nessie and Champ turn out after scientific investigation to be some type of large sea eel that travel from deep ocean areas up channels to inland lakes to breed and protect their young from predators rather than some relation to the ancient Plesiosaur that somehow escaped the K-T extinction event, then this blogger would not be shocked or too disappointed.

Well, okay maybe a part of me would be just a little bit disappointed - the writer that enjoys good stories about the idea of such exotic creatures still existing somehow. 

Okay, that just about does it for this blog post....except for one more important thing. Exiting Bishopville and Lee County and traveling west on SC 34, we did see a few somewhat interesting sights: including an actual Sasquatch sighting!

Uh, well....sort of. Hee hee!