Bailey Lakes

How Bailey Lakes began

Bailey Lakes is a small lake village in Clear Creek Township, incorporated in May 1961 around a cluster of natural lakes (James Lake, Spring Lake, and Mud Lake, also called Savannah Lake) that form the headwaters of the Vermilion River. It grew out of a lake-cottage community rather than a platted farm town, which sets it apart from most Ashland County villages that trace to 1810s-1840s survey plats. It has always been small, peaking at around 400 residents in the late 20th century and standing at 349 in 2020.

Incorporated 1961.

Where the name comes from

The village takes its name from Bailey Lake, one of the small lakes it surrounds. No source read says who Bailey was. Bailey families were among Clear Creek Township's pioneers (see the timeline), but no source connects them to the lake. In the 19th century the two lakes southeast of Savannah were known locally as the McWilliams and McLain lakes.

Before the town

No source found names a Native village, camp, or trail specifically at the Bailey Lakes site. Three dugout canoes have been recovered from the lakes (1957, 1962, and the Ringler Dugout Canoe in 1976, the last preserved by the Cleveland Museum of Natural History), physical evidence of pre-contact or early historic use of the lakes, though the canoes' makers and period are not established in the sources found. Clear Creek Township's Sprott's Hill Mounds Site, a NRHP-listed prehistoric mound group, lies within the same township (along Township Road 1193 north of Ashland) but is not sited at Bailey Lakes itself. County-level Wyandot, Delaware (Lenape), and Shawnee presence is recorded for Ashland County generally. The 1880 county history adds that one of the historic-era trails of the county passed the Burns, Newell and Carter homesteads and ran 'to the Vermillion lake, and down the Vermillion river' toward the Huron. The National Register list places the Sprott's Hill mounds between Bailey Lake and Ashland.

• Sprott's Hill Mounds Site (mound) — western side of Township Road 1193 between Bailey Lake and Ashland, Clear Creek Township (not within Bailey Lakes village limits) (en.wikipedia.org)

Timeline

1. 1818 — Clear Creek Township, which contains Bailey Lakes, is organized (October 15, 1818) out of the north half of Milton Township.
2. 1820 — Nathaniel, Abel and John Bailey are among the pioneer heads of family in Clear Creek Township at its organization, according to the 1880 county history; no source links them to the name of Bailey Lake.
3. 1823 — John Hendricks builds a water mill on Vermillion Creek about a mile west of Savannah; a later owner, Joseph Roop, digs a deep ditch from the lower lake to raise the flow and only drains that lake, and the mill fails.
4. 1880 — The county history describes two spring-fed lakes a short distance southeast of Savannah, in a basin of the dividing ridge: the upper and larger of about 160 acres, and the partly drained lower one of about 80 acres, used for canoe fishing and picnics; the Vermillion River rises in them.
5. 1909 — The 1909 county history calls these the Vermillion lakes, known locally as the McWilliams lake (the larger and deeper) and the McLain lake, with a grove beside each and campers in summer.
6. 1957 — A dugout canoe is recovered from the lakes at Bailey Lakes, the first of three found there over two decades.
7. 1961 — The village of Bailey Lakes is incorporated, reported at the time as the 739th village to incorporate in Ohio.
8. 1976 — The Ringler Dugout Canoe is found in the lakes and is later preserved by the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
9. 2020 — The village's population is recorded at 349 in the federal census.

Stories

The lakes that fed the Vermillion

Long before there was a village of Bailey Lakes, the county histories described a pair of lakes a short distance southeast of Savannah, lying in a basin on the dividing ridge that separates the Lake Erie and Ohio River watersheds. In 1880 the upper and larger lake covered about 160 acres and the lower about 80; both were fed by springs, were said to be very deep, and were used for fishing from canoes and for picnics. The Vermillion River rose in them. The lower lake had already been partly drained: Joseph Roop, who bought John Hendricks's 1823 water mill a mile west of Savannah, paid for a deep ditch from the lower lake to add water to his millrace, and instead emptied the lake, and the mill failed. By 1909 the lakes were known locally as the McWilliams and McLain lakes, with a grove at each and campers in the hot season. The village's coordinates on Wikipedia put it about a mile and a half southeast of Savannah, which matches this basin, though no source read ties the old lake names to today's.

Three canoes from the lake

Between 1957 and 1976, three dugout canoes surfaced from the small lakes that give the village its name. The first was found in 1957, a second in 1962, and in 1976 a resident named Ringler recovered a third that was complete enough to be preserved as a museum piece by the Cleveland Museum of Natural History rather than left to rot on a porch. No excavation report or radiocarbon date for any of the three has turned up in the sources checked here, so their age and makers remain unknown, but their number is itself a small fact worth keeping: the lakes were used by boat, by someone, long before the lake cottages went up. The Vermilion River, one of Ohio's designated Wild and Scenic waterways, begins its run to Lake Erie at the outflow of Mud Lake here.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · genealogytrails.com · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · commons.wikimedia.org

Wells (14 listed as active in EPA SDWIS: Wells 1-7 and 10-15; Well 9 was deactivated 2025-11-17) in the Jerome Fork Basin sand-and-gravel aquifer, sited generally north of the treatment plant on Cleveland Road The water here

• Ashland City92% of residentsJerome Fork Basin sand-and-gravel aquifer (wells)
• Rural Lorain Co. Water A6% of residentsMostly Lake Erie (bought from Avon Lake); some New London Reservoir and Ashland wells
• Bailey Lakes Village2% of residentsLake Erie
• Hayesville Village1% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Ballot issues

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Basic Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-07-16

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

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