Creature record / 1882
Rock Lake, Lake Mills, Wisconsin. 1882. Ed McKenzie and D.W. Seybert were rowing two boats, racing each other to a sandbar. Ahead of them floated what looked like a log. Then the log came to life. A snake-like head reared three feet out of the water. The jaws opened wide. It dove, and almost at once it surfaced again beside McKenzie's boat. "Bring a gun!" he shouted toward shore. By the time Wilson reached them in a fast boat with a shotgun, the creature was gone. What remained was a most sickening odor, and a story the Lake Mills Spike printed on 31 August 1882. Later writers would call it the Rock Lake Terror.
Rock Lake lies beside the town of Lake Mills in Jefferson County, Wisconsin, about 20 miles east of Madison. It covers 1,365 acres, and its water has long been called "Tyranena". Aztalan State Park, a Mississippian mound site, sits about 3 miles east.