Grand
Oak
Habitat
The Grand Oak property features 46 acres of large
mature trees, wooded ravines, small streams and wetlands. The subdivision’s woodlands
provide homes for the fox, squirrel, woodchuck, rabbit, whitetail deer,
coyotes, geese and many other species of wildlife. The forest floor nurtures a wide
variety of plant species, producing such wildflowers as large-flowered
trillium, wild geranium, bloodroot, and spring beauties. Other varieties seen
at Grand Oak include: trout lily, may apple, bugle, coltsfoot, harbinger of
spring, hepatica, purple cress, rue anemone, spring beauty, phlox, Dutchman’s
breeches, cut-leaved toothwort, golden alexander, goldenseal and wild ginger.
Blooms on the spicebush, buckeye, dogwood and shagbark hickory also color the
local woods.
Much of the thick beech-maple forests that
covered Delaware County after the retreat of the glaciers were felled many
years ago by loggers and to make way for farming. And while a healthy second-growth
forest is preserved in Alum Creek State Park and many parts of Genoa Township,
Grand Oak retains about 25 acres of the old-growth trees where the cutting
action of the stream made ravines too steep and rocky for farming. One old oak
tree at the Grand Oak subdivision had been identified as a bicentennial tree –
more than 200 years old – but was hit by lightning and died about the time the
development was started. Developer Bob Webb, it is said, named the subdivision
to honor that tree.
Authorized by Congress through the Flood Control
Act of 1962, Alum Creek Dam was constructed just one mile west of the
Grand Oak property by the Army Corps of Engineers as part of the flood control plan for the Ohio
River Basin. Construction began in August of 1970 and was completed in 1974, and
the lake was filled by summer of 1976. The dam is a 1.7-mile wide earthen
embankment that creates a lake about 11 miles in length, with a surface area of
about 3,387 acres. The lake is surrounded by 4,630 acres of parkland leased by
the Corps of Engineers to the state’s Department of Natural Resources. The lake
is very popular for boating, fishing, hunting, hiking, and swimming, with the
northern reaches of the lake restricted to paddling. A small stream in the Grand Oak subdivision flows southweterly into Alim Creek below the dam, near where Interstate 71 passes overhead.
A 1958 Ohio
Department of Transportation photo shows construction of I-71 through Genoa
Township, the village of Africa (center, above highway) and the future location
of Alum Creek Lake (left/center)..
Lewis Center Road
(right) used to continue on eastward from Genoa Township, but is now
interrupted by the lake. (GTLCA photo)
Ohio shale cliffs are notable around the lake
and in many areas of the watershed, exposed as the flowing waters cut through
underlying bedrock. The shale was formed by mud washing into an ancient sea
that covered the area hundreds of millions of years ago. The deep
coves of Alum Creek Reservoir are lined with standing timber, providing
excellent habitat for many species of fish, including largemouth
bass, smallmouth bass, muskellunge, saugeye, black and white crappie, white
bass and channel catfish.