Strouds Run State Park

History

The original land for the park was purchased for the Athens State Forest in the 1940s and 1950s. In the late 1950s, construction was started on the Dow Lake Dam, which was completed in 1960, at which point the land became Strouds Run State Park in its entirety.

A large area on the west side of the park was formerly land of the Gillett family (Samuel and Charlotte Beach Gillett and their descendants). The family owned well over a thousand acres at one time. The old farmstead seen on the Trace Trail and the "Pioneer Cemetery" are both remnant from the Gillett occupancy of the land. Two of the adjacent nature preserves, both owned by the Athens Conservancy (Blair Preserve and Tucker Run Preserve) are also both on former Gillett family land.

One of the most recently purchased areas of the park was acquired in 1953 from the Crumley family, heirs to Dr. John Jackson Crumley, who purchased the land almost a century ago as an experimental tree farm. Dr. Crumley was a classical scholar who also was one of Ohio's early state foresters, who managed the purchase of the original land for Zaleski State Forest and Hocking State Forest, and who wrote one of the earliest practical handbooks on forestry.

A large part of the upper east side of the part was owned by the Cone family, last owned by Charles Cone and Lucille Gillett Cone (a descendant of Samuel Gillett above.) Adjacent to the Cone farm was a large, one-room school house that was dismantled when the lake was built. Some of the materials from the school house were then used to construct the Strouds Run Community Church just up the road from the park, as well as a new barn for Charles Cone who lost his previous one to the park's construction. The church was eventually converted into a private residence, and was subsequently completely destroyed in a fire a few years later.

The area from the old school house, up past where the church was constructed and beyond was briefly known as Marchmont. From 1893 to 1901, there was an inn and post office for the Marchmont area that was located at the base of what was then known as Tucker Hill. This was on the same portion of land that remained in the Cone family after the park's construction, and currently remains with descendants of Charles Cone.

In addition to Gillett and Cone, some other notable family names affected by the park's construction were Cain, Finsterwald, Weiss, and Stalder. Many of those families came to this country with Baron deSteiguer. The Baron purchased the lands from the heirs of John Paul Jones as most of the area land was once owned by the Revolutionary War admiral.