Silver Lake Park – Bristol PA

Description

Silver Lake Park sits in the Coastal Plain Province of Pennsylvania.

“Owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad, the lake scarcely had any open water by the 1920’s.  In 1927 the Pensylvania Railroad completed a survey and we believe it was them who marked the boundary with a square stone having a small hole at the top. You can find a few of these along the trails in the park. In 1935-6, the Pennsylvania Fish Commission purchased the lake which was mostly wetlands.  It was at this time that the Works Progress Administration (WPA) began work on the present lake, by then called Silver Lake. Most of the work was done by hand, and the current picnic grounds are the dry land created by hand-dredging the lake. It took over 300 men to physically dig out the lake. As they were digging, oak tree trunks dating 200-300 years were unearthed. From this, we can deduce that the land that is now a lake was once a mature forest. As you walk through the forests, you’ll notice that they are surrounded by marshes. The forests were actually islands in the lake at one time.”   (https://www.silverlakenaturecenter.org)