Hello and welcome to

Here we are at another Pennsylvania leftover from the Iron Furnace days.

In 1868 Osgood M. Whipple purchased this tract of land and built a dam in order to create hydro power
for a sawmill.

Welcome to Whipple Lake… err… wait a minute.

Lets find out whats going on here.

See you in a minute

Welcome back, if you have watched my videos before, thank you for your patronage and making this
channel possible. I hope you enjoy this adventure into entry level Mudlarking.

Ok, we have a little problem. This adventure into the history of the Whipple Dam State Park has been
side railed… but in a good way.

After more than 35 years of funding issues, this former lake turned swamp has finally received its new
lease on life and is being dredged… as soon as they clear the 35 year old trees that grew in the sediment
basins of stone they built.

Regardless of that and before we get into mudlarking, let me fill you in on where we are.

On July 6th, 1754 this area of Pennsylvania was purchased from the Iroquois Confederation by the
Proprietary Government of Pennsylvania, just two months before all of the friendship treaties fell apart
leading up to the 7 years war also known as the French and indian war, and this particular site was one
of the many shady land purchases settled on the Pennsylvania frontier.

In 1868 Osgood M. Whipple purchased a tract to use for lumbering and help build the iron furnace
industry in this area.

Whipple had constructed a dam downstream from here along the laurel run creek in order to power a
sawmill.

This area was referred to as whipples dam even after Osgood left the lumber business in 1897.

In 1927, the Pennsylvania Department of Forests and Waters surveyed this area in order to establish a
recreation site.

During 1928, after seeing how deteriorated the old log-crib dam was, they came upstream and built a
new dam in a much better location for recreation.

Whipple Lake became listed as a State Forest Public Camp for Boy Scouts, Campfire Girls, and Girl scouts
with full camps on the north side of the lake.

Between 1933 and 1941, the Civilian Conservation Corps had a camp just east of this location called
Owls Gap Camp S-60-PA.
In 1935, the CCC rebuilt the dam, constructed a bridge, built multiple pavilions, roads, restrooms, and
even a beach.

The camps closed during 1941 due to WWII

Let me know in the comments below if you have stories regarding Whipple’s Dam. Send me your
historic pictures on my Facebook page or over email.
Tell me your fun stories and memories you have of this great state park.
My research is limited only by the information that people don’t share openly.
Help me break that barrier and lets share the history and culture of who we once were.

In the early 1980s, the condition of lake Whipple was in question due to the significant amount of silt
that had been collecting at an exponential rate.

This prompted a project to dredge the lake and by the mid 1980s there were huge sediment basins
created in order to put floating vacuum dredgers onto the lake that would vacuum the silt to the top of
a small ridge and deposit the silt into these basins at the bottom.

From what I was told the company that was going to complete the task went bankrupt and a lot of other
financial issues came up about dredging the lake and some animal that was now living here came into
question regarding habitat.

When I was a child in the 80’s, the lake was still a lot of fun and you could get around 70% of the lake
while in a canoe without issue.

By 2010 the lake was essentially impassible, even on canoe or kayak, with exception to about less than
10% of the 22 acres.

And here we are, in 2020, getting ready to do a mudlarking exploration, right before the rebirth of this
beautiful lake and area.