A. W. Marion State Park is a public recreation area located northeast of Circleville,

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. The

state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural ...

encircles Hargus Lake and offers hiking, fishing, and boating.

Geography

A. W. Marion State Park is in the till plain of eastern

. The till plain is flat or rolling hills that has very fertile soil. It comes from the glaciers that covered America over 10,000 years ago. The Adena settled here 2,000 years ago because of the fertile soil.

History

The Division of Parks and Recreation dammed Hargus Creek with an earthen dam in 1948. The property became a state park under the administration of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources in 1950. It was renamed A. W. Marion State Park in honor of the first director of the Department of Natural Resources, who was a

Pickaway County Pickaway County is a county in the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 58,539. Its county seat is Circleville. Its name derives from the Pekowi band of Shawnee Indians, who inhabited the area. (See List of Ohio count ...

native, in 1962.

Trails

The Hargus Lake Trail encircles the lake. Mountain biking is allowed on a multi-use trail.The red marked trail is not an approved trail and whoever constructed it did so without regard to drainage, landscape features, or wildlife usage. The Deer Creek State Park office has no knowledge of any approvals for this trail and does not want it to be used or maintained.

Wildlife

Wildlife indigenous to the area includes fox squirrel, ring-neck pheasant, a variety of songbird, a variety of waterfowl including

mallard The mallard () or wild duck (''Anas platyrhynchos'') is a dabbling duck that breeds throughout the temperate and subtropical Americas, Eurasia, and North Africa, and has been introduced to New Zealand, Australia, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay, Arge ...

and the occasional

loon Loons (North American English) or divers (British / Irish English) are a group of aquatic birds found in much of North America and northern Eurasia. All living species of loons are members of the genus ''Gavia'', family Gaviidae and order Gavi ...

great blue heron The great blue heron (''Ardea herodias'') is a large wading bird in the heron family Ardeidae, common near the shores of open water and in wetlands over most of North America and Central America, as well as the Caribbean and the Galápagos ...

black racer snake The eastern racer (''Coluber constrictor'') is a species of nonvenomous snake in the Family (biology), family Colubridae. The species is Endemism, endemic to North America and Central America. Eleven subspecies, including the nominotypical subspe ...

red fox The red fox (''Vulpes vulpes'') is the largest of the true foxes and one of the most widely distributed members of the Order (biology), order Carnivora, being present across the entire Northern Hemisphere including most of North America, Europe ...

, and

white-tailed deer The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known as the whitetail or Virginia deer, is a medium-sized deer native to North America, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru and Bolivia. It has also been introduced t ...

Boating and fishing

Boats with electric motors and rowing boats are allowed on the lake. The lake is stocked with

largemouth bass The largemouth bass (''Micropterus salmoides'') is a carnivorous freshwater gamefish in the Centrarchidae ( sunfish) family, a species of black bass native to the eastern and central United States, southeastern Canada and northern Mexico, but ...

, muskellunge,

bluegill The bluegill (''Lepomis macrochirus''), sometimes referred to as "bream", "brim", "sunny", or "copper nose" as is common in Texas, is a species of North American freshwater fish, native to and commonly found in streams, rivers, lakes, ponds and ...

and

channel catfish The channel catfish (''Ictalurus punctatus'') is North America's most numerous catfish species. It is the official fish of Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Tennessee, and is informally referred to as a "channel cat". In the United States, the ...

References

External links

A. W. Marion State Park
Ohio Department of Natural Resources
A. W. Marion State Park Map
Ohio Department of Natural Resources {{authority control State parks of Ohio Protected areas of Pickaway County, Ohio Protected areas established in 1948 1948 establishments in Ohio