Remember When An Alligator Was Found At A Lawton Lake?

Remember when Lawton had an alligator at the lake off Cache Road?

If you're a Lawton OG, you might remember this one. It was one of those "Only In Lawton" stories that popped up out of nowhere, and it was the talk of the town for a while.

It was a little over ten years ago when somebody spotted a small alligator walking along Liberty Lake off of Cache Road. It wasn't particularly big, but gators are gators.

Police were called and they found the little guy. They took some photos and turned it over to Animal Welfare... who were probably just as confused as the Facebook feeds were that day.

Why Was There An Alligator In Lawton?

Animal Welfare officials thought it might have been somebody's pet because it seemed pretty comfortable being handled, which raised a whole bunch of other questions since owning an alligator in Oklahoma isn't exactly legal without permits and licensing.

The lingering worries in the weeks after were mild to wild. What if it wasn't the only gator in the Lawton lakes? Officials were legitimately worried this might become a trend. Bootleg pets turned to the wild for any number of reasons. If a small gator was found at Liberty Lake, imagine what huge beasts could be hiding in our bigger lakes.

That sounds like a massive jump to conclusions, but how long could a gator hide in Lawtonka, Ellsworth, or the mountain lakes before somebody noticed? Years?

Luckily, ten years later, that hasn't happened... Yet.

What Happened To The Lawton Alligator?

The little gator was given to the aquarium in Medicine Park. And the city offered up a rare deal for those harboring illegal pets. People could turn them in to Lawton Animal Welfare without facing the normal penalties.

That's the grand story of the infamous Lawton alligator. It was weird, random, and really exciting for those few days. Ten years later, a forgotten footnote told as an unbelievable legend. File it under the weird Lawton animal stories between the coyotes stealing pets out on the West Side and that time a cougar wandered into the heart of Lawton during another deep drought.