Lower Shaker Lake

Lower Lake used to be part of the largest park system in the city of Cleveland, the Shaker Parklands. In 1940 the Parklands covered 296 acres within the 7500 acre Doan Brook watershed. Today Lower Lake is still owned by Cleveland, but leased to Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights for maintenance. The Nature Center at Shaker Lakes leases 21 acres adjacent to it, but is not responsible for the lake.

Before European settlement, this site was a forested ravine. Indeed, 95% of Ohio was forested. When European settlers arrived in northeast Ohio, they claimed land occupied by Native Americans through “unwelcome treaties and paltry payments,” as one author wrote.

Surveyors focused primarily on laying out townships and inventorying trees for logging during the period 1790 – 1807. The most common trees found in the Doan Brook watershed were Oak, Beech, Maple, and Chestnut. Imagine that these giants once stood in the Parklands. 

The North Union Shaker Community occupied the area for 67 years from 1822-1889. They further deforested the site for farming and to use trees, clay, and rocks to dam the Doan Brook. Lower Lake’s earthen dam, now failing, was created for a sawmill and gristmill in 1836—almost two hundred years ago. They also dammed the brook to create Horseshoe Lake upstream for a woolen mill.

After the North Union land was sold to a syndicate in 1892, the mills and other buildings were demolished and today only a foundation remains at the west end of Lower Lake, in the woods at the corner of North Park and Coventry.

In 1896 the parklands were deeded to Cleveland by the Rockefellers. “Landscape Gardener” E.W. Bowditch created a master plan for the Shaker Parklands. In 1897 a bridge was built for vehicles at Lower Lake. Today it is a pedestrian bridge on Brook Road, AKA Lovers’ Lane.

In 1905 the Van Sweringens purchased the lands around Lower Lake for housing. The lakes have been considered an asset to the residential community since then, often featured in real estate ads.

Canoeing was a popular activity on all of the lakes at the turn of the century. Boaters were particularly attracted to Lower Lake because it was the largest inland lake in the region, calmer and safer than Lake Erie, and accessible by trolley. In 1907 a group of men formed the Shaker Lakes Canoe Club. They built a one-story boathouse at the Canoe Club site which burned down, and replaced it in 1914 with the pictured two-story building. It was leased to the Shaker Lakes Canoe Club for $1 per year from the City of Cleveland. Its members paid $15 a year in membership dues, and did all the building maintenance themselves.

They held regattas with races and jousting matches, competing with other canoe clubs, often witnessed by 3-5,000 people sitting on the lake’s (then) grassy banks. There were moonlight carnivals and canoeing lessons for Boy Scouts, resulting in Lower Lake having boats on it often. 

In 1921 the city of Cleveland adopted a resolution establishing the Shaker Wild Flower Preserve at the behest of the Shaker Lakes Garden Club. The site was located at the west end of the lake bordered by Coventry and Brook Road. A footbridge built by Reno Neuter in 1923 is still standing today although in need of repair. The preserve contained water lines, a pool, and sundial. Native wildflowers still live here, including Solomon’s seal and jack-in-the-pulpit among spicebush and coralberry. Today the garden needs the removal of invasive species to restore it to its former glory.

In 1925 a design for a Shaker Memorial Garden was commissioned by the Garden Club of Cleveland at the corner of Coventry and North Park. Again, there are garden remnants but the site is overgrown with invasive buckthorn and honeysuckle.

In 1935 the Fairmount Garden Club commissioned well-known landscape architect A.D. Taylor to create a plan for the entire lake. Here is a detail of the map showing the Canoe Club. There are remnants of some of the plantings, and oak trees that predate even this plan.

Finally, in 1940 Proctor Noyes of the Cleveland planning commission presented a comprehensive plan for the whole of the Shaker Lakes parklands with bridle trails, picnic areas, and ice skating shelters. He also designed a charming Bird Sanctuary and Wild Flower Preserve for the west quadrant where previous gardens had already been established adjacent to the mill ruins. For unknown reasons this was never built.

Also unknown is when the two sets of stone stairs on the North Park paths were built, and by whom.

The red oaks along North Park Boulevard are part of a 9-mile row of Liberty Oaks planted in 1918 as a living memorial to World War I soldiers.

Returning to the Canoe Club, it was active in the 1960s but would have been destroyed had the Clark and Lee Freeways been built through the Shaker Parklands. As you know, the Freeway Fight saved the Shaker Parklands and our neighborhoods, and resulted in the founding of the Nature Center in Shaker Heights. However, the clubhouse was razed in 1976 after membership dwindled and the governing city (Shaker Heights) cited the Club repeatedly for code violations including the lack of indoor plumbing and running water.

Today this is a popular passive recreation park where now, more than ever, people come to walk, jog, bicycle, talk, botanize, and watch birds. The park is on the boundary of Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights. 

Friends of Lower Lake is a volunteer group of the Doan Brook Watershed Partnership. Volunteers have been working on Sunday mornings since May 20, 2018 to remove invasive species and restore the park with native plants.

Their work began at the Canoe Club when volunteers found concrete underneath 18” of silt and invasive porcelain berry. Clearing the foundation activated the space, with people coming to photograph, talk, do tai chi, tally birds, or just sit. It’s obvious that the Canoe Club was sited at one of the most scenic places on the lake, with friendly prevailing winds pushing canoes west to east back to the launch. Please join in the effort to restore Lower Lake park as a nature preserve. Reach out to  FriendsofLowerLake@gmail.com  to find out how. More information about their efforts can be found in the section after the Lake Tour.

Parking is located on Brook Road in either Cleveland Heights or Shaker Heights. This tour assumes the user starts along this road but the sites can be viewed in any order.

Total walking/hiking distance: 1.47 miles

Expected tour time: 45 minutes

Please note that sections of the tour may take place on unpaved trails and/or steep terrain. Some areas may also experience flooding. Do not wade into the water in these locations. Use caution.

Many thanks to the Friends of Lower Lake and the work they do. Visit their website below to learn more.

A very special thanks to Peggy Spaeth and John Barber for their assistance and expertise.

For more information, contact Dee Marsky with the Cleveland Heights Parks and Recreation Department

216.291.7372 - dmarsky@clvhts.com

Story map designed and created by Ken Bernard, GIS Administrator, City of Cleveland Heights