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| Garrett County History | ||
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The Lake Under Deep Creek Lake |
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Years ago, Mr. Robb was speaking at the Oakland Rotary Club, and added to his talk the
following comment, “I had a boat on Deep Creek before it was a lake.” He was referring to a
lake that is now beneath the waters of Deep Creek Lake, east of the present Glendale Bridge.
After the meeting he was asked more about this lake, and he said it had been in existence for
a number of years before Deep Creek Lake was built. Surprisingly, if a person looks at the
1902 Maryland Geological Survey Mapof Garrett County, this lake can be seen as the
“State Dam.” It was one of several dams built by the State of Maryland in the 1890’s as part
of Maryland’s fish hatchery complex.
The first notation about the State Dam is in a newspaper clipping for the “Sentinel” of October 10, 1893. A correspondent, who signed the article with the initials “W.K.,” spent time at the dam as part of a visit to Oakland that year. He designated the lake which is now beneath Deep Creek Lake as "Lake Brown" instead of the "State Dam.” He wrote: “Lake Brown is situated on Deep Creek in the midst of a wilderness of mountains, streams, forests and glade meadows. It is in distance nine miles from Oakland and six miles from Deer Park, and is reached over a romantic mountain road. We arrived there late Monday afternoon in company with Senator Browning.” Senator Browning was Mr. Richard Browning, a member of the Maryland legislature. Some idea of the size of this lake beneath Deep Creek Lake is given in the following sentences written by the correspondent. “The dam, which is now finished, and the lake also, has simply been a gigantic piece of work – the channel of the lake is from ten to fifteen feet deep, a mile long and from two to three hundred yards wide. In addition to native trout, Senator Browning emptied into this body of water last spring fifty thousand trout brought from Druid Hill Park, and some that were put in last August had grown two and three inches.” “A short distance from the house, (the Senator’s home) not more than a hundred yards, Senator Browning has constructed of white oak, and at considerable cost, a bridge across the lake two hundred and seventy-five feet long, reminding us much of the heavy structure on the Metropolitan Road above Rockville.” A county road know as Hoop Pole Ridge Road, traveled north through this part of the Garrett County. It crossed Deep Creek stream near the breast of Lake Brown, and after the construction of the dam, the breastwork itself became a part of the old county road. The bridge mentioned by the correspondent “W.B.” carried this road across the spillway of the dam. Further on in the article written by “W.K.”, the correspondent speaks of the famous “cat rocks,” the supposed home of wildcats when Garrett County was still a wilderness. (They form the big rocks where the present Glendale Bridge crosses Deep Creek Lake.) “W.K.” was looking westward from the dam and speaks of the “cat rocks” in the following manner. “... We were standing on the bridge looking up the wide ravine through which flows Deep Creek from which the lake is formed ...” Finally, in one paragraph of the article, the correspondent speaks of boats on Lake Brown. This, then, ties in with the statement by Mr. Robb about having, “... a boat on Deep Creek before Deep Creek Lake was built.” |
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Does anything remain of Lake Brown or the State Dam? |
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Submerged under the surface of Deep Creek Lake, parts of the breastwork are probably still
there. A trace of the old Hoop Pole Ridge Road, which crossed the dam, is now incorporated
into a cottage access road called, “Driftwood Drive,” which joins the Glendale Road ¼ mile
east of the new bridge over Deep Creek Lake.
The late Richard Maroney of Oakland, who owned the 1893 newspaper clipping, was a grandson of Senator Browning, and could remember fishing in Lake Brown when he was a boy. He had a number of other recollection about the lake; one in particular about the “ravine” over which the Glendale Bridge now crosses. He said that when a person looked at the “ravine” it was so rugged in appearance that he could believe wildcats used to live in the cliff known as the “cat rocks.” So when a person crossed the Glendale Bridge, today, and looks eastward, he is looking at the location where the lake under Deep Creek Lake once existed. |
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