Another Lake

I live in the city that has the largest Great Lake at our doorstep, Duluth. Lake Superior is so beautiful. I’ve told you before that I love how it can look different each day. Thursday on the way home it was a deep blue-green color with small white caps dotted all over it. Yesterday it was a very, very pale blue on the way to work, and on the return trip home it was gray. The colors of the lake are one thing, I think, that keeps it so interesting to me.

When I was visiting my home in PA a few weeks ago I want to tell you about another lake that I saw and took a lovely boat ride on. In 1966 a company from Memphis, Tennessee came to our little rural area of farm land and bought up, well I can’t remember how many, but at least 4 or 5 farms, just up the road from our farm. Their plan was to build a man made lake of 291 acres and to sell real estate lots to those interested in owning lakefront property or property by a lake. They made it more attractive by telling the prospective buyers that there would be a swimming pool, tennis courts, lake access areas, a marina, a restaurant, and that all these things would be available only to the property owners. When all of the lots were sold, the company turned everything over to the property owners association that was formed by the property owners.

Now, you can imagine the skeptics there were in our area about this company from out of state coming in and doing something like this. Many people were suspicious, many were upset by such development, and thought it would never work, and for sure, couldn’t believe they could every build a lake that would be full of water someday.

The company thought that people from Washington, D. C. and Baltimore, MD would make up the majority of the buyers, and that they would come up just for vacation and weekend property. They were wrong. We had many people from Harrisburg and York area buy, and instead of vacation and summer homes being built, year round homes were built. Even many people from our area bought property. Pretty soon it became like a community, and mostly year round residents.

When the company first came in, before there was even an office set up, my Mother pushed me into applying for a job there, she was sure they would need a secretary. The project manager hired me as soon as he had a vacated farm house to set up an office in.
I was there on the “ground floor”. I watched the demolition of the buildings, the land being surveyed by the surveyor crew, the roads being built by the constructors, and the dam being built to hold the water for the lake. A marina was built, water towers, a restaurant, pool and pool house and I saw it all from nothing but farm land to a community of homes. I remember two ambitious property owners, the first two to build
before the water line was put in, and remember that their homes were finished and they
had no water…they were not happy! I remember the drama of them coming into the office complaining everyday until they finally got their water! After those two homes went up, that was the beginning… homes were going up before the dam was even finished.

Speaking of the dam, I remember so well the grief that the inspector that was there for every step of the dam being built, gave to the company day after day, making sure to keep the company in line and that the dam was built properly. People buying lots there could be well assured that that dam was built properly!

For those skeptics who believed the 291 acre lake would never be full, when the lake filled, the manager had me send out to all owners on letterhead that looked like a telegram with the big headlines of 4 words: “The lake is full”. I will never forget that.

Those were interesting years. I worked there for over 4 years, throughout all the construction. When I left there, the company was in the process of turning everything over to the “Lake Meade Property Owners Association”. I learned a lot, learned how to set up and run an office, gained many office skills, and learned how to deal with people.
I grew up, and the job expanded my horizons and gave me a lot of experience to go out into the world.

Tomorrow I will write about my experience of seeing this lake 40 years later.