Eugene H. Ware - Presque Isle State Park

Images of Modern America

PRESQUE
ISLE
STATE
PARK

The Tom Ridge Environmental Center was built in 2006 at the gateway to Presque Isle State Park to educate the public about the park. It contains a large-format movie theater, caf, nature shop, the parks offices, and many exhibits dealing with Presque Isle and the environment. (Authors collection.)

FRONT COVER: Presque Isle Light Station (Authors collection; see )

UPPER BACK COVER: Aerial view of Presque Isle in the fall (Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources)

LOWER BACK COVER (FROM LEFT TO RIGHT): Handicapped fishing platform (Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources; see )

Images of Modern America

PRESQUE
ISLE
STATE
PARK

EUGENE H. WARE

Copyright 2016 by Eugene H. Ware
ISBN 978-1-4671-1590-2
Ebook ISBN 9781439656556

Published by Arcadia Publishing
Charleston, South Carolina

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015950102

For all general information, please contact Arcadia Publishing:
Telephone 843-853-2070
Fax 843-853-0044
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For customer service and orders:
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Visit us on the Internet at www.arcadiapublishing.com

The brig Niagara, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvanias flagship, fires four of her cannons off in Presque Isle Bay while leading a procession of 10 tall ships totally around the bay. (Authors collection.)

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to acknowledge the support, ideas, guidance, and editing help of my wife, Nancy, my family, and friends in the finalization of this book. Nancy in particular provided valuable counsel with her editing, comments, and critique of my work as the book moved forward. I also wish to thank the members of the Erie, Pennsylvania, chapter of Penn Writers for their critique and support. They are my best sounding board on style, wording, and grammatical problems.

The following provided help and critical research needed plus several images within the book: Brian Berchtold; Steve Friel; Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR); Erie County Historical Society; and Harry Leslie, retired manager of Presque Isle State Park.

INTRODUCTION

It seems almost as if when heaven and earth were created, a pause was taken at just a few places to create something specialplaces where a person could stop and reflect on what is right about the world; places to relax, play, and rest for a moment to drink in the beauty and wonder of nature and the natural world. Presque Isle State Park is surely one of these.

The park is a modest seven-mile-long sandspit peninsula located along the shore of Lake Erie just north of Erie, Pennsylvania. It sweeps like a bow nearly two miles out into the lake on a northeastern course and forms a protected natural harbor two miles wide and five and three-quarter miles long. The story of the park has always been interwoven with the history of northwestern Pennsylvania and the firm desire of the people of Erie and the commonwealth of Pennsylvania to keep the park natural while cautiously updating it for visitor use and protecting it from the ever-present ravages of Lake Erie. This book will give the reader a glance at the changes, people, activities, and scenes on the park from about 1948 through 2015.

Between these dates, many significant changes took place on the park. Those include the 1950 expansion of Presque Isles neck to stop Lake Erie from continuing its efforts to make the park an island. This immense task involved dredging 3.8 million cubic yards of sand from the widest area of the park as well as parts of Presque Isle Bay. While the new neck allowed for a four-lane entry road into the park, it also allowed for the creation of a vast new interior lake with a 500-boat inland marina. Additionally, in 1957, eight new full-service bathhouses were added to principal beaches.

From 1989 to 1992, the Army Corps of Engineers installed 58 stone breakwaters about 50 to 70 yards off the beaches to protect the eroding shoreline of Presque Isle. These breakwaters were 50 to 60 feet in length, spaced 60 yards apart, and four feet higher than the surface of the water. Since that time, the erosion has slowed by over 60 percent. Sand still needs to be brought in to repair some of the beaches each year. The park fills in much smaller areas with sand than in the past, and in the last few years, sand has been brought to Presque Isle by 980-foot-long lake freighters rather than being trucked in.

In 1984, the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources began building the first phase of the Karl Boyes Multi-Purpose National Recreational Trail. After 12 years in construction, the 14-mile-long trail completely circles Presque Isle State Park. It is entirely paved and was built for walkers, joggers, runners, in-line skaters, and recreational bicyclists. There are also 34 more miles of interior hiking trails on the park.

This book will profile Presque Isle State Park and show the reader why I call it A Place for All Seasons. It will display to the reader the remarkable power and beauty of nature, the history of northwestern Pennsylvania, and the unending effort of the people of Erie and the commonwealth of Pennsylvania to maintain the parks natural beauty. Using images, maps, and descriptions from the parks history, this book will give the reader a glimpse of why over four and a half million visitors make their way to Presque Isle each year. This attendance is more than Yellowstone or Yosemite National Park.

Have you ever watched a sunrise while walking on the beach of either an ocean or lake? Maybe its a shaft of mornings golden light rippling off the still water that seizes and holds your attention. Presque Isle visitors are offered this simple gift of nature, a place where you can pause for a moment to drink in the beauty that nature has to offer in all its simplicity, solitude, and peace. The park has an impressive variety of flora and fauna. Deer roam the park, and herons, egrets, and owls fish and hunt the lake, bays, and ponds of the lagoons that are all exquisite features of this water-related paradise. In the words of the great naturalist Henry David Thoreau, You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind.

Three key events contributed to the successful efforts to keep Presque Isle natural. The first was the 1921 designation of Presque Isle as a protected state park. The second was the naming of Presque Isle as a national natural landmark by the National Park Service in 1967. The third event was the construction and staffing of the Tom Ridge Environmental Center at the entrance to Presque Isle in 2006. These three measures assure that the park will remain undeveloped forever. It is perhaps a wonder in these days of greed and commercialization that Presque Isle stands as a place where nature, animals, and people can still coexist.

On Presque Isles north shore lies Lake Erie, considered by many a dead, polluted lake just 30 short years ago. At the time, many rivers and streams dumped tons of effluent from industries and cities into the lake, polluting its waters. But regulations and nature, in an act of wisdom, worked together to protect Presque Isle. Regulations lowered pollutants, and nature moved the lakes normal current farther offshore as it swept by Erie and the park. Slowly over the last 30 years, the lake has done a complete turnaround and has once more become a thriving home to fish, birds, plants, and animals of all kinds. Waters have cleared, and life on and around the lake is plentiful. In fact, since 2008, the members of the Presque Isle Partnership and the Erie Yacht Club have held a two-mile swim across Presque Isle Bay from the park to the club just across the bay. In 1995, the bay was declared an area of pollution concern by the EPA. In 2007, Presque Isle Bay became the first body of water to be removed from this list, and the swim was initiated at that time.