By Rob Pavey
Columbia County Bureau Chief
Web-posted June 21, 1996 at 4 p.m.

Lake Olmstead - once a tourist attraction complete with a zoo, amusement park and private club - is the legacy of an 1870 project to enlarge the Augusta Canal.

The $371,000 expansion - costly for its day - was funded by voter referendum and included a dam across Rae's Creek to help enlarge the canal, built in 1845.

Initially, the canal was routed over Rae's Creek via an ornate aqueduct, said Tom Robertson, chairman of the Augusta Canal Authority.

The primary engineer hired to expand the waterway, however, had other ideas, one of which ultimately led to the lake that now bears his name.

Charles Olmstead, who worked on the 350-mile Erie Canal linking Buffalo, N.Y., and Lake Erie with the Hudson River, was hired by Augusta Mayor Charles Estes.

``Olmstead plugged up the old aqueduct, where the canal once went over Rae's Creek,'' Mr. Robertson said. ``The canal bank then became a dam and the dam formed the lake they called Lake Olmstead.''

Italian masons, recruited to block off the old aqueduct, were among more than 400 workers who bustled along the canal during the expansion. The dam was completed in 1872, backing 113 acres of water into a wooded basin.

The scenic area rapidly became a sporting and recreation mecca, first known as Lake View Park.

As early as 1873, boat races were popular weekend events at the lake. Later, the city bought the property for $9,150. Fifteen more acres were added in 1924, when an amusement park owned by Augusta-Aiken Railway was donated to Augusta.

In its heyday, Lakeview Park included a private club on the water's edge. Many prominent Augusta families kept boathouses at the lake. And while pre-1900 historical accounts include references to two large islands in Lake Olmstead, both are absent toda y.

Little is known of Olmstead's accomplishments before sculpting an enlarged Augusta Canal to hasten the industrial prosperity enjoyed by Augusta during the post-Reconstruction era, Mr. Robertson said.

``We know he came from the Erie Canal and did some work up there first,'' Mr. Robertson said. ``He saw to the enlargement of the canal, and that project had two different construction contracts and two different engineers.''

Although Olmstead helped design the expansion, the enlarged head gatesheadgates and locks were overseen by Byron Holley, also an Erie Canal engineer and colleague of Olmstead, Mr. Robertson said.

``The head gatesheadgates were enlarged several years after the canal was enlarged,'' he said. ``And we know the contractor for the Erie Canal brought a steam dredge down to dredge our canal.''

As westward growth brought development along Rae's Creek, silt, flooding and pollution from septic tanks and storm runoff brought water problems and intermittent bans on swimming in Lake Olmstead.

Most recently, Lake Olmstead spawned the name for Augusta's new baseball stadium, though the choice has drawn criticism.

City and county officials had trouble agreeing on a name, debating naming the field for local sports legends such as Ty Cobb and coach A.L. Williams, to geographic names such as Augusta-Richmond County Ball Park.