Syracuse Lake is a natural

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 ...

bordering

Syracuse Syracuse may refer to: Places Italy *Syracuse, Sicily, or spelled as ''Siracusa'' *Province of Syracuse United States *Syracuse, New York **East Syracuse, New York **North Syracuse, New York *Syracuse, Indiana * Syracuse, Kansas *Syracuse, Miss ...

Kosciusko County, Indiana Kosciusko County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Indiana. At the 2020 United States Census, its population was 80,240. The county seat (and only incorporated city) is Warsaw. The county was organized in 1836. It was named for the Polish gen ...

, United States.

Location

Syracuse Lake is bordered on the west by N. Front Street, Pickwick Road and the

B&O Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...

on the south. On the east it is bordered by E. Shore Drive and on the north by E. Northshore Drive. It connects to

Lake Wawasee Lake Wawasee, formerly Turkey Lake, is a natural lake southeast of Syracuse in Kosciusko County, Indiana, United States. It is the largest natural lake wholly contained within Indiana. It is located just east of Indiana State Road 13. History Lak ...

by a channel on the south end.

Hydrology

Syracuse Lake is classified as a

Trophic Trophic, from Ancient Greek τροφικός (''trophikos'') "pertaining to food or nourishment", may refer to: * Trophic cascade * Trophic coherence * Trophic egg * Trophic function * Trophic hormone * Trophic level index * Trophic level * Trop ...

Class 1 lake, having a

eutrophication Eutrophication is the process by which an entire body of water, or parts of it, becomes progressively enriched with minerals and nutrients, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus. It has also been defined as "nutrient-induced increase in phytopla ...

index value of 10. The lake is typical in structure of natural lakes of the

glaciated A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such as ...

portions of the upper

Midwest The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...

. The lake is presently healthy and has a balanced aquatic

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...

(WAW 1995). It has a surface area of with a maximum depth of and an average depth of .

History

Pre-glaciation

Around 1 million years ago, just prior to the

Pleistocene epoch The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...

, northern Indiana was covered by the

Teays River The Teays River (pronounced taze) was a major preglacial river that drained much of the present Ohio River watershed, but took a more northerly downstream course. Traces of the Teays across northern Ohio and Indiana are represented by a network ...

system, which flowed northwest out of

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...

, and

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 ...

, entering Indiana at Adams County and flowing about 49 miles south of what is now Syracuse Lake.

Post-glaciation

After the last

glaciation A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate betw ...

period, the land was left with

kettle hole A kettle (also known as a kettle lake, kettle hole, or pothole) is a depression/hole in an outwash plain formed by retreating glaciers or draining floodwaters. The kettles are formed as a result of blocks of dead ice left behind by retreating gla ...

s and hilly

moraine A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris (regolith and rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a glacier or ice shee ...

s. The land supported large vast ''

Picea A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the subfami ...

'' evergreen forests and

balsam poplar ''Populus balsamifera'', commonly called balsam poplar, bam, bamtree, eastern balsam-poplar, hackmatack, tacamahac poplar, tacamahaca, is a tree species in the balsam poplar species group in the poplar genus, ''Populus.'' The genus name ''Populus ...

, which gave way to hardwoods of

oak An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...

and

hickory Hickory is a common name for trees composing the genus ''Carya'', which includes around 18 species. Five or six species are native to China, Indochina, and India (Assam), as many as twelve are native to the United States, four are found in Mexi ...

. Animal life included ''

Glyptodon ''Glyptodon'' (from Greek for 'grooved or carved tooth': γλυπτός 'sculptured' and ὀδοντ-, ὀδούς 'tooth') is a genus of glyptodont (an extinct group of large, herbivorous armadillos) that lived from the Pleistocene, around 2.5 ...

'',

saber-toothed cat Machairodontinae is an extinct subfamily of carnivoran mammals of the family Felidae (true cats). They were found in Asia, Africa, North America, South America, and Europe from the Miocene to the Pleistocene, living from about 16 million until ...

mastodon A mastodon ( 'breast' + 'tooth') is any proboscidean belonging to the extinct genus ''Mammut'' (family Mammutidae). Mastodons inhabited North and Central America during the late Miocene or late Pliocene up to their extinction at the end of th ...

short-faced bear The Tremarctinae or short-faced bears is a subfamily of Ursidae that contains one living representative, the spectacled bear (''Tremarctos ornatus'') of South America, and several extinct species from four genera: the Florida spectacled bear ('' ...

dire wolf The dire wolf (''Aenocyon dirus'' ) is an extinct canine. It is one of the most famous prehistoric carnivores in North America, along with its extinct competitor ''Smilodon''. The dire wolf lived in the Americas and eastern Asia during the Late ...

ground sloth Ground sloths are a diverse group of extinct sloths in the mammalian superorder Xenarthra. The term is used to refer to all extinct sloths because of the large size of the earliest forms discovered, compared to existing tree sloths. The Caribbe ...

, giant beaver,

peccary A peccary (also javelina or skunk pig) is a medium-sized, pig-like hoofed mammal of the family Tayassuidae (New World pigs). They are found throughout Central and South America, Trinidad in the Caribbean, and in the southwestern area of North ...

stag-moose ''Cervalces scotti'', the elk moose or stag-moose, is an extinct species of large deer that lived in North America during the Late Pleistocene epoch. It had palmate antlers that were more complex than those of a moose and a muzzle more closely re ...

and

ancient bison ''Bison antiquus'', the antique bison or ancient bison, is an extinct species of bison that lived in Late Pleistocene North America until around 10,000 years ago. It was one of the most common large herbivores on the North American continent dur ...

. Lakes would have

sturgeon Sturgeon is the common name for the 27 species of fish belonging to the family Acipenseridae. The earliest sturgeon fossils date to the Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretace ...

, whitefish,

pike Pike, Pikes or The Pike may refer to: Fish * Blue pike or blue walleye, an extinct color morph of the yellow walleye ''Sander vitreus'' * Ctenoluciidae, the "pike characins", some species of which are commonly known as pikes * ''Esox'', genus of ...

, pickerel, and

muskellunge The muskellunge ''(Esox masquinongy)'', often shortened to muskie, musky or lunge is a species of large freshwater predatory fish native to North America. It is the largest member of the pike family, Esocidae. Origin of name The name "muskellun ...

Human inhabitation

The ground around Syracuse Lake and Syracuse was first settled by the people of the Glacial Kame culture, who would leave behind artifacts and burial sites.

The Syracuse dugout

In 1959, Dick Jamison of Syracuse was fishing in of water just off the southeast shore. He saw beneath the water what he thought was a large, water-soaked log, with one end protruding from the green algae moss. He and his father returned and removed moss,

marl Marl is an earthy material rich in carbonate minerals, clays, and silt. When hardened into rock, this becomes marlstone. It is formed in marine or freshwater environments, often through the activities of algae. Marl makes up the lower part o ...

, and slime, exposing a blackened

dugout canoe A dugout canoe or simply dugout is a boat made from a hollowed tree. Other names for this type of boat are logboat and monoxylon. ''Monoxylon'' (''μονόξυλον'') (pl: ''monoxyla'') is Greek – ''mono-'' (single) + '' ξύλον xylon'' (t ...

made of a

tulip tree ''Liriodendron'' () is a genus of two species of characteristically large trees, deciduous over most of their populations, in the magnolia family (Magnoliaceae). These trees are widely known by the common name tulip tree or tuliptree for their ...

, measuring and between wide. Age and exposure had rotted away most of the boat's sides. It was thought that the canoe belonged to

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

Indians or fur traders, or by very early settlers, and that it was abandoned on the old shore before the lake was raised by a dam built in 1834.

Indian Hill

Indian Hill is located on the north shore of Syracuse Lake, 1.5 miles to the east of the town of Syracuse. It was a cemetery for the Indians of the area, who interred their dead in trees. Eventually the wrapping around the dead would disintegrate, causing the skeletal remains to fall to the ground.

Accounts of sturgeon

In 1912, Bing Raymond caught a

in Lake Syracuse off the lake's extreme northwest side, near a place called China. Another sturgeon was seen about the same year by four men. The third account occurred in the 1920s, when Charlotte White discovered a disabled sturgeon measuring , 3 inches and weighing 130 lb, suffocated by a pair of waterwings caught in its gills.

Current population

Syracuse, like its neighbor,

, is lined with many homes used seasonally and by those who live there year-round.

References

1995 Wawasee Area Watershed Lake Enhancement Diagnostic/Feasibility Study
*Lilly, Eli. Early Wawasee Days. Indianapolis: Studio Press Inc., 1960. {{authority control Lakes of Indiana Lakes of Kosciusko County, Indiana