Buckeye Lake--Canal Necessity to Ohio's Playground

It looks like a guillotine, but I'm pretty sure this is much less sinister

I've been vaguely aware of Buckeye Lake for some years now. I've lived and worked on the East Side of Columbus ever since I moved here from Cincinnati, and more often than not Buckeye Lake keeps coming up in conversation. People did day trips during the summer, lived out there, wanted to move there, retired there, owned businesses there, took their boats there, grew up there, talked about it generally like people in Massachusetts talk about the Cape--if you got four or five people together, and someone was going to have a story.

Sparkly water and wide open spaces

I didn't get it until I drove out on a whim to see the lake myself. I'd heard the story (like just about everyone else in the state) about the Army Corps of Engineers report about the dam and was a little curious. The Village of Buckeye Lake had an East Coast feel to it--houses and businesses were crammed together to maximize the space, no built up commercial developments, strip malls were rare and very small. A nautical theme all over, including the lighthouse water tower as you get off the highway.

When houses, marinas, restaurants, etc are built on and into the dam...it's no wonder there's a history of near failure

That is a lot of weight pressing down on the dam, and a lot of water pressing against the side

The lake started life as the Licking Summit Reservoir in the late 1820's. It was created by damming the south fork of the Licking River to provide a supply of water to then-new Ohio and Erie Canal, which was sort of a big deal at the time. The Licking Summit Reservoir wasn't actually up to the task of supplying the water necessary, so later on another lake was formed to the north and west of the Licking Summit. A dike that doubled as the canal tow path was put in, and created the division between the Old Reservoir and New Reservoir. You can still see the old canal heading from Buckeye Lake, cutting north and south through Millersport on the west end of the lake.

All that's left of the amusement park Columbus loved before Cedar Point

Something used to sit here, and the fact those pilings are steel reinforced concrete makes me think a hefty building

As we all know railroads killed the canal stars, even the mighty Ohio and Erie. While much of the canal system was either abandoned or sold off to be used for a wide variety of other purposes, the Ohio legislature actually passed a law designating canal reservoirs as state parks. That is how the Licking Summit Reservoir (both of them!) became Buckeye Lake. A big part of this decision stemmed from the sudden popularity of power boats in the early part of the century--bodies of water large enough to accommodate boats were starting to become popular, spawning vacation cottages and parks to provide access.

More than enough space to get out and enjoy a boat on

Continuing to support my conspiracy theory that transportation infrastructure is just one long incestuous soap opera, one of the major reasons Buckeye Lake became so popular was it's central location along the interurban railway. Once the tunnel at Black Hand Gorge was completed, residents of Newark and Columbus were able to hop on a trolley car and take a day trip to the lake--which helped feed the amusement park on the North Shore for decades in the middle of the 20th century. Believe it or not, there used to be an amusement park along the lines of Cedar Point or Kings Island out on Buckeye Lake. It attracted big name bands and musicians, had rides and games, and of course swimming and boating on the lake. Anything you might want to break up the doldrums of an Ohio summer could be found on Buckeye Lake.

With lakeside property in higher and higher demand, people have to get creative rather than give up a chance to be on the water

All that remains of the amusement park is a fountain in the parking lot of the North Shore State Boat Ramp that marks where the main avenue used to lie, and maybe those haunting concrete pilings in the inlet where Crystal Beach's swimming area are--couldn't really find much information on what might have been there. Even still, when that report on the dam came out there wasn't a lot of talk about seriously draining the lake and that in large part has to do with the economic impact of the lake each summer, when people hours and hours from Lake Erie are able to drive down and enjoy time on the water.

These dock and boat holder combos ring the lake almost every chance you get--another example of efficient space use to avoid boathouses