The Mystery of the Hall County Sink Hole

With my last post, I talked about listening to the stories of my grandparents, aunts, and uncles. However, not everything interesting in Hall County happened over a century ago. This story has its beginning in the early 80's. I remember my uncle talking about a sink hole that just opened up in the middle of a field one day. As he told it, a farm hand was plowing the field and on one of the runs a 10-foot hole was in the field where it wasn't on the last pass. From there it grew day by day. He had just seen it, and it was big and deep. Water was just beginning to bubble up from the bottom. I was too young to drive myself so I filed this story away for later. When my kids were old enough to take a backroads adventure, we hit the dirt roads of Hall County, and we found it. 

It's no longer growing, and it's quite big. Fast forward to today, armed with Google Maps and the latest drone technology, I returned to do a proper job of documenting this feature.

According to Google Maps the sink hole is 430 feet across.

According to multiple accounts, the sink hole was as deep as it was wide before it filled with water. That's big. The aerial footage I got does a good job of conveying the size. 

After successfully landing the drone, we drove back through Lakeview and noticed that many of its 101 population must be eating at the Lakeview Grill. We decided to have lunch. 

Inside, it was warm and welcoming. We soaked up the feeling of normalcy.

The special on Friday was chicken fried steak, and we ordered two. 

One of my storm chase buddies who actually lives near by was also having lunch. I told him where we just were, he laughed and said the farmer working that land was sitting right over there. 

Seeing that the atmosphere of the restaurant was more of a family reunion than what you'd find in the big city, we chatted with the farmer. He of course knew all my family like everybody else. His story was that they had just finished plowing the field the day before. The next morning someone noticed the hole. They were scared to get too close because it was rapidly growing. He said it became quite the tourist attraction for awhile and that scientists came from as far away as Europe to study it. 

If you want good eating with a great atmosphere, check out Lakeview Grill. 

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Update 1 (10/09/2020): A FaceBook user, Judy L Duke, on the "Post Cards of the Panhandle" group posted this wonderful manual panoramic photo of the sink hole soon after it formed and before it filled with water. 

Update 2 (10/15/2020): Judy sent me another series of old photos that I was able to enhance a bit. These really show how deep and steep this sink hole was. 

These three photos are from a few years after it formed when I was still filling up with water.