Question: Which Florida river is said to be home to a monster nicknamed “Johnnie”?
Answer: The St. Johns River. Reports of a massive creature in the river date back to 1849, when a schooner captain described a 90-foot, dirty brown serpent with a snake-like head near the river’s mouth. The legend picked up steam in the 1950s, when a Kissimmee snake farm owner offered a $5,000 bounty for the monster alive. The most famous sighting came in 1975, when Jacksonville fisherman Wallace McLean said the creature was “the color of boiled shrimp” and sketched what he saw. That drawing remains the only known eyewitness illustration. Skeptics have blamed manatees, otters swimming nose to tail, and moray eels, but sightings have continued for more than 170 years.
