6 minute read
Lee Peacock
A SNAPSHOT OF YESTERDAY
BY CAROLYN DRINKARD
Since the beginning of time, mankind has been fascinated by the people and events that came before. Many look to the past, hoping to learn lessons that will help them make sense of their own world.
Lee Peacock has an insatiable curiosity about the world he lives in. Lee has become something of a homegrown historian who tries to see local happenings through the eyes of those who lived them. He spends a great deal of time in the historical sections of the Monroeville and Evergreen libraries, hoping to create a snapshot of yesterday by piecing together stories and tales passed down for generations.
“I love to read old newspapers,” he said. “Many of my friends know that one of my favorite things to do is ride around, visit historic sites and take pictures, so they often tell me about places I need to see myself.”
Lee Peacock has been in the newspaper business since he graduated from the University of Alabama in 2000. He
Lee Peacock and his family live in Excel. His wife, Crystal, son James and daughter Harper.
Above: The Shiloh Primitive Baptist Church is the oldest standing building in Frisco City, Alabama.
Lee and James Peacock enjoy kayaking to Mound Island in the Mobile Delta. This region attracts many outdoorsmen, exploring the diverse area.
started as a reporter for The Monroe Journal, but then went to The Evergreen Courant in 2007, serving as the managing editor for four years before returning to The Monroe Journal in 2021 as a reporter and photographer. His columns appear in newspapers in Wilcox, Monroe and Conecuh counties. His photographs have been featured in many other magazines and newspapers throughout Alabama.
Lee Peacock wears many hats. He owns Peacock Financial Solutions, Inc., in Monroeville. He also co-hosts a daily morning show on WPPG 101.1 FM in Monroeville. He is a longtime member of the Alabama Sports Writers Association and a founding member of the Alabama High School Football Historical Society. Since 2014, Lee has also worked at WPPG 101.1 FM in Evergreen, covering area sports. On Friday nights during football season, he hosts a radio scoreboard show after the games.
Lee Peacock grew up in Frisco City and now lives in Excel with his wife, Crystal, and their two children, Harper (15) and James (13). He is a veteran, who did a tour of duty in Iraq, serving in a medical unit. He still works some weekends as an EMT on an ambulance service that covers both Monroe and Conecuh counties.
Lee Peacock’s desire to learn more about where he lives is more than just leafing through musty
Supposedly, ghosts and spirits still haunt the old Kelly Mill Mercantile Co. store in historic Dottelle, Alabama.
newspapers, however. When someone sends him an old clipping or he hears a tantalizing tidbit, his wanderer’s blood starts a-stirring. Lee hops in his truck for a “little backroads exploring” to find long-forsaken places. You might find Lee scanning headstones for the oldest grave in a remote cemetery or searching for an Indian mound, with arrowheads, spear points and other artifacts and relics that he read about in a 100-year-old newspaper. Look for him, kneeling at Johnson’s Log, an old fallen tree, where people have “brought stones as symbols of their burdens” and placed them on this natural altar as they prayed. He might be out at the Hybart Community post office or filming a long-forgotten cemetery that sits unnoticed next to busy Highway 84. He may even be scoping out “Hairy Bill,” who supposedly lived at “Booger Bottom,” or judging a Bigfoot calling contest in Evergreen, the Bigfoot Capital of Alabama.
Wherever you find Lee Peacock, he is on a mission, a mission to bring to light the history of an area that he calls home. He is constantly looking for old ghost stories, local legends and Indian lore.
Lee has a kinship with two popular Alabama writers who lived near him. Kathryn Tucker Windham grew up in Thomasville, while Buster Singleton lived near Sweet Water. Like Lee, both writers had a fascination for the unexplained, for “curious oddities.”
Kathryn Tucker Windham’s book, “13 Alabama Ghosts,” is one of Lee’s favorites. He once led his many YouTube followers to the Purifoy-Lipscomb Home in Furman (Wilcox County), mentioned in the book.
Lee’s greatest influence, however, has been George “Buster” Singleton, a local Monroeville his-
Mt. Pleasant Methodist Church remains the center of Monroe County’s historic Eliska community.
torian and paranormal investigator who published a weekly newspaper column called “Somewhere in Time.” Lee worked with Singleton at The Monroe Journal and admired both the man and his work. Lee is now collecting Singleton’s articles, so that he can revisit many of the places Singleton mentioned.
Since 2010, Lee has been manning the BCR Listening Post-Observation Post to write a blog called “Dispatches from the LP-OP”. Here, he chronicles excerpts from past newspapers, some dating back over 135 years. He frequently mentions Singleton’s articles and talks about revisiting timeworn sites.
“I try to uncover something that may have been known by older generations, but it is new to younger people!” he explained.
Lee’s columns are popular across the state and shared often on social media. Readers comment, thanking him for highlighting relatives and events that have been forgotten through the years. Some tell about visiting the sites he has mentioned and finding their own family connections.
One of Lee’s biggest fans is another popular Alabama writer. “Lee Peacock’s appreciation for Alabama history is contagious,” said fellow Alabama writer, Amanda Walker, who lives in and often writes about Wilcox County. “Lee doesn’t just write about it from afar. He takes the reader with him - back through time and over the years - to visit the places where the past happened.”
Connecting to his past has made Lee quite a genealogy buff. Since his children are tenth-generation Monroe County residents, Lee is now working on a never-ending family history book. Amazingly, many of the places he visits and the people he discovers have connections to his own family. In his quest to discover a sense of identity, Lee has come to realize that his writings will one day become part of his own legacy. “It’s neat to think that one day, my grandkids will have access to this,” he stated proudly.
Regardless of where you run into Lee Peacock, he is helping his readers understand their community and thus, themselves. Whether checking out another historic site or following the trail of yet another tall tale, Lee is along the back roads of Conecuh, Wilcox and Monroe counties, off the beaten path, camera in hand, capturing yet another snapshot of yesterday.
Lee Peacock’s BUCKET LIST No. 563 was to visit the Johnson’s Prayer Log in Monroe County. Residents brought stones as symbols of their burdens and placed them on this natural altar as they prayed.
