Buckeye Lake

• Buckeye LakeBuilt 1832 · 2,800 acres

How Buckeye Lake began

Buckeye Lake village grew up along the shore of a reservoir that canal engineers created between 1826 and 1830 by damming the South Fork of the Licking River across a swamp Native travelers had long known as 'Buffalo Lick.' The Ohio State Legislature renamed the reservoir Buckeye Lake in 1894, and it developed into a resort reached by interurban trolley from Newark and Columbus, its amusement park and lakeside businesses rising and eventually fading across the twentieth century. The village, which spans both Licking and Fairfield counties, withdrew from Union Township in 2013 to form its own paper township, and in 2015 an Army Corps of Engineers inspection found its 1830s-era dam at imminent risk of failure, forcing an emergency drawdown; the dam was completely rebuilt by 2018.

Where the name comes from

As early as the 1750s the swamp that became Buckeye Lake was known as 'Buffalo Lick,' for a salt spring that drew game, and locally as the 'Big Swamp' or 'Big Pond.' After the Ohio and Erie Canal's dam turned it into a reservoir it was called the Licking Summit Reservoir, or simply 'the reservoir,' until the Ohio State Legislature renamed it Buckeye Lake in 1894, for Ohio's nickname as the Buckeye State.

Before the town

The swamp that became Buckeye Lake was, by the 1750s, a known landmark on the Native travel network: 'the main Indian trails between the Ohio River and the Miami towns passed by this swamp,' according to an 1870 account of trader James Smith's captivity among the Indians, cited in the lake's own history. The 1881 Licking County history independently confirms the same ground's importance to Native travelers, describing a branch trail that left the main Muskingum-crossing route near Dresden, followed the Licking River up to Bowling Green, then bore southwest to 'the Big and Little lakes, or what is now the reservoir' — a spot the history calls 'a favorite resort for the purpose of fishing' — before continuing on toward Beaverstown near modern Pickerington. No specific village or treaty line is recorded as standing at the lake site itself; the surrounding land was ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, three decades before the canal dam was built. The lake and the modern village were both part of Union Township until 2013, whose native history includes a documented Wyandot captivity and escape story tied to a family that later settled on Union Township's Auter Creek; see the Hebron file for the fuller record.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot, Shawnee, Miami.

• Buffalo Lick and the fishing ground at the Big and Little lakes (trail) — the swamp and lakes later dammed to form Buckeye Lake, on a branch trail between the Muskingum River crossing near Dresden and Beaverstown near Pickerington, documented by the 1750s, used as a fishing resort into the early 1800s (en.wikipedia.org)

Timeline

1. 1750s — The swamp later dammed to form Buckeye Lake is already known as 'Buffalo Lick,' with main Indian trails between the Ohio River and the Miami towns passing by it.
2. 1795 — The Treaty of Greenville cedes most of what becomes Ohio, including the future lake site, to the United States.
3. 1825 — The Ohio Canal is ceremonially begun on July 4 at Licking Summit, on State Route 79 between Newark and Hebron, an event that would lead directly to the reservoir's construction.
4. 1826-1830 — A dike is built across the South Fork of the Licking River to create a reservoir feeding the Ohio and Erie Canal, enlarging the old swamp to roughly 7.25 miles long and 1.25 miles wide.
5. 1894 — The Ohio State Legislature renames the reservoir 'Buckeye Lake.'
6. early 1900s — The Columbus, Buckeye Lake & Newark Traction Company completes an interurban electric line linking Newark to the lake, part of a wider network that soon reaches Columbus and Zanesville.
7. 20th century — An amusement park and other recreation businesses develop around the lake, thriving before declining as the century proceeds.
8. 1949 — Buckeye Lake is named a state park.
9. 2013 — On August 27, Buckeye Lake village withdraws from Union Township, Licking County, forming its own paper township, Buckeye Lake Township.
10. 2015 — In March, an Army Corps of Engineers structural review finds the lake's 1830s-era dam at imminent risk of failure, prompting an emergency drawdown and a proposal that ranges from doing nothing to draining the lake entirely.
11. 2018 — The rebuilt dam, funded by $150 million approved by Governor John Kasich and completed for $107 million, is marked with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on November 8.

Stories

The Great Swamp Becomes a Reservoir

Before it was a lake, this was a swamp Native travelers called Buffalo Lick, a landmark on a trail linking the Ohio River to the Miami towns as far back as the 1750s. Ohio's canal engineers saw it differently: a low point that could be dammed to feed the Ohio and Erie Canal's summit level, the highest stretch of the whole system, which needed a steady water supply to keep its locks working. Between 1826 and 1830 they built a dike across the South Fork of the Licking River, and the old swamp swelled into a reservoir more than seven miles long. It carried the plain engineering name 'Licking Summit Reservoir' for over sixty years, until the Ohio Legislature gave it a more memorable one in 1894: Buckeye Lake, for the state's own nickname.

By Trolley to the Lake

Once the canal itself lost its economic importance in the early twentieth century, Buckeye Lake found a new one: recreation. The Columbus, Buckeye Lake & Newark Traction Company built an interurban electric line connecting Newark directly to the lakeshore, part of a network of trolley lines that soon reached as far as Columbus and Zanesville and was later absorbed into the Ohio Electric Railway system. An amusement park and other lakeside businesses grew up to meet the trolley crowds, thriving for decades before the whole recreational economy declined later in the century as automobiles made the old interurban lines obsolete.

A Dam at the Brink

For nearly two centuries the earthen dike built in the 1820s held back Buckeye Lake without serious incident. That changed in March 2015, when a $140,000 structural review by the Army Corps of Engineers' Huntington District concluded the dam was in imminent danger of failing, threatening the homes and businesses that had grown up along the shore over the previous century. Corps officials laid out options ranging from doing nothing to completely draining the lake; Governor John Kasich instead approved $150 million to rebuild the dam properly. The work finished under budget, at $107 million, and Buckeye Lake had a new dam by the time officials cut the ribbon on November 8, 2018.

Photographs

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

Groundwater wells (4 wells) The water here

• Buckeye Lake, Village Of96% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Hebron Village3% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Millersport Village0% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Licking County Harbor Hills0% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
• Roberts Trailer Park0% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public libraries (1)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Police stations (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

Money issues on the ballot since 2020: 2 of 6 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 0 of 3.

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.
• Financial Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-09-05

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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