One of the most asked questions regarding local history relates to the course of the Portage River. The answer is not complicated nor is it lengthy.
The Portage River flowed from the west to the area of Port Clinton in somewhat the same course as the River flows today. The River flowed along what is the shoreline and marsh area of Perry Street. The leeward bank of the River was formed by sand bars in Lake Erie. The River flowed through the lower areas north of the current State Route 163 and eventually emptied into West Harbor and East Harbor.
As Lake Erie began to assume its present level and form, the gradient of the old river decreased thus forcing the Portage to seek a higher level upstream. Gradually, the mouth of the River was established at Port Clinton.
This event was not a recent development. Geographically this drainage and re-channeling was a result of the Wisconsin Glacier that passed through this area during the last Ice Age, approximately 14,000 years ago.
Sources
Prescott, Henry W. Legends of Catawba, 1922.
Ryall, Lydia. Lake Erie Islands, 1913.
Finkbeiner, Pettis & Strout, Limited. Ottawa County Planning Program; Comprehensive Regional Development Plan, vol. 2. 1970 – 1995.
Actually, within the PC city limits between approximately Jefferson to Maple Streets, the river flowed a little farther south than your description. When the northmost trees along Perry Street were young, they stood on the south river bank. Photo and map evidence illustrates this. In fact, until the 1870s, (when rerouting the river mouth began) there was no real Perry Street east of Jefferson Street. It was merely a sand beach. Today's Perry Street roadway is essentially over the old river path. The land for today's Perry Street came from the sunken camp ground that is a little east of Krogers on Rt. 163. In addition, much of land for Waterworks park is garbage which, at the time, the city requested of the citizens to dump their garbage there to help as landfill. Recent excavating in the park area has turned up several 1800s era artifacts.
ReplyDeleteLakeshore Drive and Sand Road are two ends of the same sandbar. The primary reason the mouth was rerouted was because ships with a draft deeper than five feet had to enter the river channel near today's Buckeye Blvd. Some carrying lumber even had to float their loads down the river channel in an effort to enter or exit the river channel. This also was a large factor in the discontinuation of the original lighthouse at the corner of Perry and Adams Streets in 1870.
The first attempt to reroute the river was done in 1868 by simply cutting across the sandbar near where the mouth is today. This quickly filled back in and demonstrated the need for bulkheads and piers. The building of the piers occurred between 1872 through 1915. Since then, the task has simply been one of maintaining them.
Until the early 1890s, a twenty foot opening of the old river channel remained open where Waterworks Park is today. This was closed when they began landfill to build the Waterworks plant. Also, in the 1850s, a storm raged through here which wiped out a section of Lakeshore Drive out near where the Moose Lodge is and, essentially, moved the mouth a little farther west for a while until they repaired it.
Also, bathymetry maps of Lake Erie illustrate that, at one time, the river likely extended farther and emptied into the Sandusky Basin (NOT Sandusky Bay) between Kelley's Island and the Marblehead point.