The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1932-07-14
LITTLE KNOWN IN
OTHER SECTIONS OF THE
STATE, DEEP CREEK HAS
MANY ADMIRERS
By STUART GIBSON
In the Baltimore Sunday Sun,
July 10, 1882.

~ $780,
While Grover Cleveland was Presi-
dent a group of Washington sports
men who had found for themselves a
secluded camp site on first-class and
little known trout stream in Garrett
county invited him to be their guest.
The President accepted, and whipped
the creek and little natural lake which
lay below the camp, and consequently
the sportsmen, gratified by his visit,
named their lake in his honor. For
years after that Lake Cleveland re-
manned in seclusion on Deep Creek,
and nobody thought that one day it
would form part of the second largest
artifcially formed body of water in
the United States.
But this is what happened. Deep
Creek Lake grew out of that small,
isolated pond. Now it has a sixty
seven-mile shore line and is more than
twelve miles long. Its greatest depth
is some sixty-five feet and in places
it is nearly a mile wide. Into it flow
not only the creek from which it gets
it's name, but Red Run, Cherry Run
and a dozen other mountain streams.
Power from its impounded waters pro-
vides electricity for city, its spill
ways help to swell a northward-fow
ing river and its mountainous sur
roundings lend it an unusually beau
ty. But great majority of Mary
landers apparently it still is as little
known as when President Cleveland
waded the stream bed that now lies
sixty-fve feet under water.
The lake, however, is not without
honor save in its own country. West
ern Pennsylvania and West Virginia
have discovered it. Pittsburgh fisher
men and hunters are familiar with it
and the surrounding mountains. Boy
Scouts from that city have a perma-
nent camp on the lake shore, which is
used by a dozen troops in summer.
A religious order is building large
camp for use of it's brethren. Masons
of Pittsburgh have acquired a large
tract of land for use as game pre-
serve, and many West Virginians have
bought building sites on the banks OF
the lake. There are, of course, many
Marylanders who have come to know
Deep Creek, some of them intimately;
but somewhat to the distress of Sweep
son Earle, Maryland Conservation
Commissioner, and others interested
in developing the natural opportuni-
ties for sportsmen and nature-lovers,
the lake is far more familiar to those
from other States than to residents of
Maryland.
The lake came into being in 1925,
when the dam impounding its waters
was completed at cost of between
100000 and 100000. Through
an arrangement with che company
which built it to obtain hydro-electric
power for Johnstown, Pa, the Conser-
walton Commission was given the
right to stock the lake with fish and
police control over the shore line.
Private property rights do not in
clude the actual shore, but use of the
riparian rights under the direction
of the commission is not restricted
save in a very general sense. Since
the completion of the dam forest
preserve, game sanctuary and fish
hatchery have been established in the
nearby mountains, and the State
Roads Commission now is completing
series of rebuilding operations which
will result in a ribbon of first-class
road over the mountains.