Indigo Lake

The 10 acre lake is considered `a disturbed natural site' because it was a gravel and sand quarry (Gray's Quarry) from 1955 to 1970. Two-thirds of the steeply banked quarry was reduced, creating 23 acres of flat and gently sloping grassy areas.

The area of Indigo Lake in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park has a long history. The traces of the Mound Builders thousands of years ago in Bath are difficult to find. If you walk along the ridge across the road from the Hale Homestead, within the park of Indigo Lake, you may come across an oval cavity in the earth with raised edges, according to Whittlesey in 1871.

To the south (on what used to be the Cranz property) a wall-like formation of earth can be seen on a slope in the ground, according to Bierce in 1854. There are also several mounds in Bath and Northampton but it would take an expert to identify most of them now; plowing and erosion taken their toll on the structures. Even in 1871 Whittlesey complained that some mounds, which he had indicated were in Bath, were barely visible. Farmers deliberately plowed them level, for they almost always were made of rich soil. (1)

The Indians (Chief Pontiac's and Chief Ogoontz tribe, the Ottawa's, with neighboring Mingo's, Delaware's, Chippewa's, and Wyandotte's ) also made the job of learning about the Mound Builders more difficult. They showed no knowledge of the earlier race(2). Perhaps, if the Mound Builders were very long past, even Indian lore could not remember them. 

The Indians  made changes in the mounds by camping on them, burying their own dead in them, and leaving stone artifacts in them which could be confused with the tools of the Mound Builders.(3)

After the Mound Builders and then the Indians, part of this area  belonged to the Hammonds (Cranz) and Jonathan Hale. Mr. Hale arrived from Connecticut in the late summer of 1810 to find several squatters on his land. After working with the squatters and his neighbors Mr. Hale slowly formed his land into a beautiful farm. Now preserved as a part of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park it has a beautiful lake, woods and trails.