The Jay Cooke House (also known as Cooke Castle), is a historic summer estate house on

Gibraltar Island Gibraltar Island (or the "Gem of Lake Erie") is an island in Ohio, located within Lake Erie. This small 6.55-acre (0.026 km²) island is just offshore of South Bass Island. It is part of Put-in-Bay Township, Ottawa County, Ohio. The rocky ...

, an island in the

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has t ...

community of

Put-in-Bay, Ohio Put-in-Bay is a village located on South Bass Island in Put-in-Bay Township, Ottawa County, Ohio, United States, east of Toledo. The population was 154 at the 2020 census. The village is a popular summer resort and recreational destinati ...

. Built in 1865, it was the summer house and a favorite place of financier

Jay Cooke Jay Cooke (August 10, 1821 – February 16, 1905) was an American financier who helped finance the Union war effort during the American Civil War and the postwar development of railroads in the northwestern United States. He is generally acknowle ...

(1821–1905). Since 1925, the former Cooke estate has hosted the Stone Laboratory of

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

, one of the nation's oldest freshwater field research stations. The estate, encompassing the entire island, was declared a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 1966. and

Description and history

Gibraltar Island is a minor island associated with

South Bass Island South Bass Island is a small island in western Lake Erie, and a part of Ottawa County, Ohio, United States. It is the southernmost of the three Bass Islands and located 3 miles (4.6 km) from the south shore of Lake Erie. It is the third la ...

in southwestern Lake Erie, located inside the cove known as Put-in-Bay, where the village of Put-in-Bay is located. The 8-acre island is roughly lozenge-shaped, with an elongation at its southwestern end. The Cooke Castle is located east of the geographic center of the island, and is the easternmost of the buildings on the island. It is three stories in height, built out of stone with wooden trim. Its most prominent feature is a four-story octagonal tower, topped with a Gothic Revival crenellated parapet. The single-story front porch is also topped by crenellations, with rounded-arch openings flanked by square columns. The interior features elaborate woodwork, with a fine marble fireplace in the parlor. The island was purchased by Jay Cooke in 1865, and the house was built soon afterward. Cooke, a native of Sandusky, had played a pivotal role in financing the war effort Union side in the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

, selling near one billion dollars of war bonds to large and small buyers alike. He regularly spent time here after building the house, typically spending three weeks in the spring, and again in late summer. He was forced to sell the island in 1874, having suffered bankruptcy due to the

Panic of 1873 The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered an economic depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 to 1877 or 1879 in France and in Britain. In Britain, the Panic started two decades of stagnation known as the "Lon ...

, but recovered some of his fortune and repurchased the property in 1880. The island was acquired by Ohio State University in 1925, which established its freshwater research center there.

References

External links

* {{National Register of Historic Places in Ohio National Historic Landmarks in Ohio Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio Historic American Buildings Survey in Ohio Houses in Ottawa County, Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Ottawa County, Ohio Houses completed in 1865 Ohio State University

Description and history

See also

References

External links