Pymatuning Reservoir is a man-made

lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

Crawford County, Pennsylvania Crawford County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 83,938. Its county seat is Meadville. The county was created on March 12, 1800, from part of Allegheny County and named for Colonel Wi ...

and

Ashtabula County, Ohio Ashtabula County ( ) is the northeasternmost county in the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 97,574. The county seat is Jefferson. The county was created in 1808 and later organized in 1811. The name Ashtabula deriv ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, on land that was once a very large

swamp A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

. Much of it is incorporated into two state parks: Pymatuning State Park in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, and Pymatuning State Park in

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 ...

History

The first known inhabitants were the

Mound builders A number of pre-Columbian cultures are collectively termed "Mound Builders". The term does not refer to a specific people or archaeological culture, but refers to the characteristic mound earthworks erected for an extended period of more than 5 ...

. Two of their mounds were flooded by the creation of Pymatuning Lake. The

Lenape The Lenape (, , or Lenape , del, Lënapeyok) also called the Leni Lenape, Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada. Their historical territory includ ...

were living in the area when European settlers first came there. The lake is named for the

chief Chief may refer to: Title or rank Military and law enforcement * Chief master sergeant, the ninth, and highest, enlisted rank in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force * Chief of police, the head of a police department * Chief of the boa ...

who lived in the area at the time, Pihmtomink. The Lenape were pushed out of the area by the

Seneca Seneca may refer to: People and language * Seneca (name), a list of people with either the given name or surname * Seneca people, one of the six Iroquois tribes of North America ** Seneca language, the language of the Seneca people Places Extrat ...

tribe, a member of the

Iroquois Confederacy The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...

. The Seneca were defeated by

General Anthony Wayne Anthony Wayne (January 1, 1745 – December 15, 1796) was an American soldier, officer, statesman, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He adopted a military career at the outset of the American Revolutionary War, where his mil ...

's forces during the

Northwest Indian War The Northwest Indian War (1786–1795), also known by other names, was an armed conflict for control of the Northwest Territory fought between the United States and a united group of Native American nations known today as the Northwestern ...

and left the area under the terms of the

Treaty of Greenville The Treaty of Greenville, formally titled Treaty with the Wyandots, etc., was a 1795 treaty between the United States and indigenous nations of the Northwest Territory (now Midwestern United States), including the Wyandot and Delaware peoples, ...

. This treaty marked the end of Native Americans inhabiting the area. The first settlers to the area were

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer mig ...

s, whose life was not easy, as the land was very swampy and very difficult to

reclaim Reclaim, reclaimed, reclaimer, reclaiming or reclamation means "to get something back". It may refer to: * Land reclamation, creating new land from oceans, riverbeds, or lake beds * Dedesertification, reversing of the land degradation in arid ...

. Farm animals that wandered off were often lost in the

quicksand Quicksand is a colloid A colloid is a mixture in which one substance consisting of microscopically dispersed insoluble particles is suspended throughout another substance. Some definitions specify that the particles must be dispersed in a ...

s of the swamp, or fell

prey Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill the ...

predator Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill th ...

s like

fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

es,

bears Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the North ...

and

mountain lion The cougar (''Puma concolor'') is a large cat native to the Americas. Its range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America and is the most widespread of any large wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere. I ...

s. The swamps were infested with

mosquito Mosquitoes (or mosquitos) are members of a group of almost 3,600 species of small flies within the family Culicidae (from the Latin ''culex'' meaning " gnat"). The word "mosquito" (formed by ''mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish for "li ...

es that brought

yellow fever Yellow fever is a viral disease of typically short duration. In most cases, symptoms include fever, chills, loss of appetite, nausea, muscle pains – particularly in the back – and headaches. Symptoms typically improve within five days. In ...

to the settlers. An unsolved murder case is associated with the then Pymatuning Swamp: in 1932 by herpetologist

Norman Edouard Hartweg Norman Edouard "Kibe" Hartweg (August 20, 1904 – February 16, 1964) was an American herpetology, herpetologist, Curator of Herpetology for the Museum of Zoology at the University of Michigan, and president of the American Society of Ichthyolog ...

, while he was searching for reptiles, ran into a body of a lady. The police concluded that she had been murdered elsewhere, but her identity was never confirmed, nor the murderer identified.

Dam and lake

Building a dam on the Shenango River was first explored in 1911. A massive

flood A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...

in 1913 caused $3 million in damage and took several lives. The

Pennsylvania General Assembly The Pennsylvania General Assembly is the legislature of the U.S. commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The legislature convenes in the State Capitol building in Harrisburg. In colonial times (1682–1776), the legislature was known as the Pennsylvania ...

approved a budget of $1.2 million to build at dam across the Shenango, but Governor John K. Tener slashed the budget to just $100,000. The Pennsylvania legislature took action again in 1917, this time approving a $400,000 budget under the condition that the needed land in

be purchased by the private sector. The Pymatuning Land Company was formed and raised the funds to purchase the needed Ohio properties. The land was finally acquired in full by 1931 when Governor Gifford Pinchot approved $1.5 million to complete the dam. 7,000 men began work on the dam in 1931 and the project was completed in 1934, with a final total cost of $3,717,739. The lake now holds of water, covering 17,088 acres (69.15 km²) over a length of 17 miles (27 km) with a width of 1.6 miles (2.6 km) at the widest and 70 miles (113 km) of shoreline, with a maximum depth of 35 feet (11 m). The lake has served to provide a water supply for the Shenango and Beaver valleys, it has lessened the damage caused by floods, and provided recreation for the people of Ohio and Pennsylvania. Two state parks, each named " Pymatuning State Park", are on the lake in Ohio and Pennsylvania. A scenic 2-mile-long

causeway A causeway is a track, road or railway on the upper point of an embankment across "a low, or wet place, or piece of water". It can be constructed of earth, masonry, wood, or concrete. One of the earliest known wooden causeways is the Sweet Tra ...

bridge spans the middle of the lake, connecting the towns of Espyville on the Pennsylvania side of the lake and Andover on the Ohio side. The bridge is crowned in the middle, with tall pillars and broad ducts underneath to allow lakewater to flow freely across the reservoir, and to permit the passage of sailboats and other pleasure craft travelling from one half of the lake to the other. The bridge is also equipped with small concrete and earthen pull-offs large enough for several vehicles apiece, with concrete staircases and walkways below the parking spaces to allow travelers to stroll down and fish or sightsee beside the bridge. The Pennsylvania portion also has a spillway separating the (higher) upstream-most portion of the lake from the rest. A parking area along the spillway serves a popular warm-weather attraction commonly known as "where the ducks walk on the fish" because visitors throw bread to the thousands of carp and Canada geese who congregate there.

References

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External links

Pymatuning Lake - LakelubbersPymatuning Lake - Lake Community IndexOhio DNR fishing map of Pymatuning Lake
{{authority control Reservoirs in Pennsylvania Reservoirs in Ohio Protected areas of Ashtabula County, Ohio Protected areas of Crawford County, Pennsylvania Bodies of water of Crawford County, Pennsylvania Bodies of water of Ashtabula County, Ohio