{"id":77289,"date":"2026-08-25T01:19:39","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T05:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=77289"},"modified":"2026-08-25T01:41:49","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T05:41:49","slug":"the-legend-of-blinky-lakelands-famous-one-eyed-alligator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/08\/25\/the-legend-of-blinky-lakelands-famous-one-eyed-alligator\/","title":{"rendered":"The Legend of Blinky: Lakeland\u2019s Famous One-Eyed Alligator"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img data-dominant-color=\"d9dabd\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"230\" height=\"172\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 230px) 100vw, 230px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/images-3-5.webp?fit=230%2C172&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-77293 not-transparent\" style=\"--dominant-color: #d9dabd; aspect-ratio:1.3373307894975925;width:380px;height:auto\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Press photo from June 10 1970 showing Blinky being hearded back to Lake Mirror in Lakeland, FL. Also a tourist pin of Blinky which is incredibly difficult to locate. Blinky was the king of Lakeland and would stroll around town at will. He had lost an eye and a foot in battles with other gators but seemed to love humans. Sadly after a gator attack in another part of Florida he was removed and sent to a gator farm where unfortunately he was killed by another wandering reptile. A crocodile named Jake. The Lakeland P.D. officer has been identified as Jimmy Mock Sr.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img data-dominant-color=\"928172\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #928172;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"512\" height=\"640\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/784904426_2045486936854227_975152846846954509_n.webp?fit=512%2C640&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-77291 not-transparent\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/784904426_2045486936854227_975152846846954509_n.webp 512w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/784904426_2045486936854227_975152846846954509_n-240x300.webp 240w\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Story Of Blinky The Friendliest Alligator Lakeland Florida\" width=\"1110\" height=\"624\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/b13NdZ5YY4M?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Press photo from June 10 1970 showing Blinky being hearded back to Lake Mirror in Lakeland, FL. Also a tourist pin of Blinky which is incredibly difficult to locate. Blinky&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDhcL2ltYWdlcy0zLTUud2VicD9maXQ9MjMwJTJDMTcyJnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiVGhlIExlZ2VuZCBvZiBCbGlua3k6IExha2VsYW5kXHUyMDE5cyBGYW1vdXMgT25lLUV5ZWQgQWxsaWdhdG9yIiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJkb2lzIiwiZm9udCI6IiIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.dmMLZ9ccptIz44LWcrFJDiBh5j3dMP7cPsO1JVwsz_wMQ"},"version":2,"media_source":"sig","attached_media":[{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/jetpack.com\/redirect\/?source=sigenerate&query=t%3DeyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvbGFrZWxhbmRnYXpldHRlLmluZm9cL25ld3NcL3dwLWNvbnRlbnRcL3VwbG9hZHNcLzIwMjZcLzA4XC9pbWFnZXMtMy01LndlYnAiLCJ0eHQiOiJUaGUgTGVnZW5kIG9mIEJsaW5reTogTGFrZWxhbmRcdTIwMTlzIEZhbW91cyBPbmUtRXllZCBBbGxpZ2F0b3IiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImRvaXMiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.v5158nF6QSCAol6VcdPnus2E7LDQsHFmBqgX9NNpGIEMQ","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[16484,16482,15203,16485,16483,15196,15186,16489],"class_list":["post-77289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-alligators","tag-blinky-the-alligator","tag-florida-history","tag-jimmy-mock-sr","tag-lake-mirror","tag-lakeland-fl","tag-lakeland-police-department","tag-local-legends"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77289"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77294,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77289\/revisions\/77294"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}