North Bass Island viewed from Middle Bass Island

North Bass Island is an island of the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

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 ...

located in

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 ...

. A small unincorporated community, Isle Saint George, is on the island. The North Bass Island Post Office was established on May 25, 1864, and the name changed to Isle Saint George Post Office on March 2, 1874. The Isle Saint George ZIP code 43436 provides PO Box service. The island is equidistant to Port Clinton, OH and Kingsville, Ontario, Canada. The 688.6-acre (2.786 km²) island is one of few islands that has not been commercially developed. The state of Ohio purchased 589 acres (2.4 km²) of the island to preserve it from development and operates it as North Bass Island State Park. Historically, North Bass was mainly used as a

vineyard A vineyard (; also ) is a plantation of grape-bearing vines, grown mainly for winemaking, but also raisins, table grapes and non-alcoholic grape juice. The science, practice and study of vineyard production is known as viticulture. Vineyards ...

. According to the 2000 census the island had 13 permanent residents. As of January 2007, there were roughly two dozen permanent residents residing on the island's 12 privately owned properties. North Bass Island Airport offers a paved airstrip. Air traffic for take-off and landings to the north are complex as the Canadian border is challenging to avoid with less than two miles from the runway threshold. The runway underwent significant improvement October 2019 with a $2.338 MM grant from the FAA, the first improvement since the runway was originally paved in 1995. The runway is part of the Put-in-Bay Port Authority. North Bass Island has no ferry service but has maintained a dock for commercial grape activity since 1880 with substantial improvements and additions as early as 1900. The most recent improvement to the dock to ensure that commercial vessels could still serve the island occurred in 2019. Nearly $500,000 worth of improvements were necessary just to make the dock operable. North Bass Island School is the state's last operating, public,

one-room school One-room schools, or schoolhouses, were commonplace throughout rural portions of various countries, including Prussia, Norway, Sweden, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Spain. In most rural and s ...

. The school is designated by the Ohio Legislature and approved by the Ohio Department of Education as a K-8 building, the only one-room schoolhouse on an island in Ohio. High school students who reside on North Bass island fly to the mainland or another island. High school students have attended EHOVE Career Center, Put-in-Bay, Port Clinton, and Sandusky High School. All of the current members of the Board of Education attended North Bass School. Because there is no ferry service to the island and ice surrounds it for four months per year school year, high school students fly to the airport closest to their school. The school building was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 2020 as North Bass School. North Bass Island is the second largest and northernmost island of the

Bass Islands The Bass Islands are three American islands in the western half of Lake Erie. They are north of Sandusky, Ohio, and south of Pelee Island, Ontario. South Bass Island () is the largest of the islands, followed closely by North Bass Island () a ...

, which are a part of the larger

Lake Erie Islands The Lake Erie Islands are a chain of archipelagic islands in Lake Erie. They include Kelleys Island, Erie Island, Pelee Island, the Bass Islands, and several others. The majority of these islands are under the sovereignty of the State of Ohio in t ...

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands. Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Archi ...

. On the southwest corner of the island there is a small bay named Manila Bay and there is a small unnamed creek that protrudes from the bay. The island is part of

Put-in-Bay Township, Ottawa County, Ohio Put-in-Bay Township is one of the twelve townships of Ottawa County, Ohio, United States. The 2000 census found 763 people in the township, 635 of whom lived in the unincorporated portions of the township. Communities *Put-in-Bay is a village l ...

. The island was part of a territorial border dispute between the United Kingdom in the

Battle of Lake Erie The Battle of Lake Erie, sometimes called the Battle of Put-in-Bay, was fought on 10 September 1813, on Lake Erie off the shore of Ohio during the War of 1812. Nine vessels of the United States Navy defeated and captured six vessels of the Briti ...

, and a portion of the island was claimed by Ottawa Tribe of the Oklahoma in 2006.

References

External links

North Bass Island State Park
- official site {{authority control Islands of Ottawa County, Ohio Islands of Lake Erie in Ohio State parks of Ohio Protected areas of Ottawa County, Ohio

See also

References

External links