Gerber's Spring Lake Park. East side of Rt 58 (Leavitt Rd) just south of the Ohio Turnpike. Across the street from Mullinax Ford although Mullinax was not there until 1970. Around 1960 we used to hike down the abandoned RR tracks (you can just make out in the background) to this pond and fish here. I remember the huge snapping turtles that cast a wary eye on us from the safety of deep water.

Gerber opened the park in 1961 and sold family memberships for swimming, picnics, etc. Within a few years they had a sandy beach on the far side of the lake and a large picnic pavilion plus a ballroom for dances and wedding receptions. We joined and I loved sliding down the long slide into the water. The park closed in the late 1980s.

By the 1990s the original 4 acre Mullinax lot across Rt 58 had expanded into a huge 67 acre dealership on both sides. This area in front of the pond became an additional lot for trucks with its own showroom. Mullinax was one of the largest Ford dealers in the nation. In 1996 the Mullinax brothers sold the entire Mullinax group of several dealerships to AutoNation. But the boom of car sales had dropped off. Within only a few years the parking lot here, although it had grown to be over 800 feet wide, was no longer used.

Today the vast expanse of concrete that once held millions of dollars worth of trucks and cars has grass growing in all the cracks. In 2004 the Turnpike added the Amherst exit. If you are traveling east bound and exit at Amherst, you actually encircle this lake and can view the rusting buildings of the park.

And the snapping turtles? They have seen it all come and go - the yelling, the splashing, the music, the dancing, the bright lights, the cars and trucks - and they have outlived it all. Time and again the bulldozers have ripped up the dirt and replaced it with concrete until they are surrounded. But perhaps the snappers have once again returned to their rightful position as masters of their domain.

See photo 1-KLO-16 for Mullinax in 1971, and photo 13-ILO-15 in 1993 during the heyday.