Geauga Lake in northeast Ohio began as Giles Pond, named for settler Sullivan Giles (1809-1880), and grew after the predecessor of the Erie Railroad stopped at Pond Station in 1856. In the 1880s, local residents created picnic grounds, a dance hall, and other facilities for country visitors, and Picnic Lake Park, later Geauga Lake Park, opened in 1887 with rides, a roller rink, photo gallery, billiard hall, bowling alley, and other attractions. The Kent House hotel opened on the southeast side of the lake in 1888, and over the next century the park expanded and added attractions including SeaWorld of Ohio before closing in 2007. The lake area also developed from a cluster of summer cottages for vacationers into a residential community, with growth accelerating after the Geauga Lake Orchard Company formed in 1915 and the Western Reserve Land Company in 1920. In 1921, the Geauga Lake Improvement Association (GLIA) was chartered to protect residents’ access to the lake. During Prohibition, the rural area included speakeasies and dancehalls such as the Magnolia Club, and during World War II gas rationing led the GLIA’s lakeside clubhouse to serve also as a church with services by Reverend J.R. Hutcherson (1905-1996). After the war, a housing shortage and transportation improvements helped shift the community toward year-round housing, and as of 2017 the GLIA continued to guard the adjacent area.
