Feb 27, 2026

How a Lake Built for Leisure Became the Heart of a Laboratory

By Bryding Adams & Sarah Vickery

The story of Lindenwood—later Ravenel Lake—is a story of land, science and the long work of stewardship in Highlands, North Carolina.

A lake does not look engineered when you meet it the way most people do—quiet water, trees at the edge, the suggestion that it has always been there. But Lindenwood Lake began as an intention: a decision to hold water in place, to shape land into a destination—and, later, to give a scientific institution something rare in a small mountain town: an anchor.

Highlands Biological Station sits in a landscape shaped by water. At its center is Lindenwood Lake—once known as Ravenel Lake—chosen in 1931 as the best location for the Station’s first laboratory. The surrounding property had been divided into lots in the early 1920s by developer Thomas Peden Anderson, based on a survey completed May 10, 1924 by J. Q. Pierson.

This is the story of the land, the lake, and the people who secured it—transforming a scenic park lake into a living laboratory.

A Lake Before the Laboratory: Lindenwood Park (1886–1895)

The story begins with the Ravenel family. Samuel Prioleau Ravenel Sr. (1822–1902) and his wife Margaretta (1833–1912) acquired vast holdings across the Highlands plateau—some 30,000 acres from Satulah to Sagee—land that likely included today’s Lindenwood Lake area. The Ravenel descendants later donated Sunset Rock to the Town of Highlands (1914), in memory of Samuel Sr. and Margaretta.

The Ravenels were actively shaping Highlands as a destination. They had been acquiring land since 1886, and by 1890 they built a carriage road to the top of Satulah. In 1893, they decided to create a lake by damming the water from four creeks—streams that still feed the lake today.

In 1895, a Franklin Press report described Lindenwood Park as a carefully cultivated landscape: plantings around the shoreline, water lilies, fish ponds, winding paths, smooth roads, and a boathouse with boats imported from Spring Lake, Michigan. Lindenwood Park, the article noted, was open to the public through the generosity of Samuel Prioleau Ravenel Jr. (1868–1940).

"Boating on Lake Lindenwood" c. 1910
R. Henry Scadin Photograph
Highlands Historical Society

On Oct. 9, 1895 the Franklin Press reported “Lindenwood Park has been much improved this year. Shrubbery and plants have been seen out on the border of the lake. Rare water lilies are blooming in pools made to receive them; and rare fish can be seen moving in the little ponds, so constructed as to be seen by the visitor. A boat house was been built in a lovely nook, in which are floating when not in use, two pretty boats: one a lory, the other a keel or round bottom boat, built in Spring Lake, Michigan. Lindenwood Park is an enclosure of hundreds of acres, with winding paths, and hard and smooth roads to drive over, with grand and varied scenery. This beautiful park, through the generosity of the owner, S. P. (Samuel Prioleau) Ravenel, Jr. (1868-1940) is open to the public.”

"Lower Lake Road near Coker Rhododendron Trail"

"Lakeside Road in Lindenwood Park" 1897-1898 R. Henry Scadin Earle Young Collection, University of North Carolina, Asheville

Dam on Lindenwood Lake c. 1900
HBS Archives, Gift of Porter S. Pierson, son of J. Q. Pierson

"Lindenwood Lake" c. 1907
R. Henry Scadin Postcard

"View of Village of Highlands from Biscuit Rock" 1883-1885
R. Henry Scadin Photograph
Earle Young Collection, University of North Carolina, Asheville

"Lindenwood Park" c. 1910
R. Henry Scadin Photograph
Gift to HBS by Mrs. Will W. Edwards (Minnie)

The Anderson lots and the shape of ownership

By the early 1920s, the lake’s future was shifting from parkland to planned development. Thomas Peden Anderson (1884–1935)—a banker and land developer born in Westminster, South Carolina—likely purchased the property around Lindenwood Lake in early 1924. He and his wife Minnie Pearl Hutchinson (1884–1964) had five children. Anderson later served as business manager of Oglethorpe University in Atlanta and moved to Florida in 1925.

On May 10, 1924, surveyor J. Q. (John Quincy) Pierson (1881–1956) completed Anderson’s detailed survey map of the Lindenwood Lake property. From this plat, lots were sold to many individuals—the beginnings of the long and complicated patchwork of ownership around the lake.

Map "T. Peden Anderson's Lindenwood Lake Property Highlands, NC, Survey completed May 10, 1924" by J. Q. Pierson Surveyor, (John Quincy, 1881-1956)

Explore the Pierson Survey map by clicking on the image above to view the different lots.

“The Most Imperative Need Was a Laboratory” (1930–1931)

The Board of Trustees incorporated the Highlands Museum and Biological Laboratory in 1930 and a vision quickly came into focus. At their first meeting on August 23, 1930, Trustees agreed that the most urgent need was a laboratory.

A September 26, 1930 letter between Trustees Clark Foreman and E. E. Reinke introduces the Andersons’ lake property as a possible solution. Mrs. Anderson, Foreman reported, suggested there might be a way to secure land for a laboratory site.

By 1931, the Trustees—Clark Foreman, Dr. Ivey Lewis, Dr. E. E.

Reinke, and Dr. L. R. Hesler—were searching for a location that was both affordable and scientifically ideal. Dr. Lewis felt strongly that the laboratory should be on a lake, because biological experimentation requires water. They determined that Frank Potts’ property on Lindenwood Lake offered the best site.

Potts wrote to Foreman on January 19, 1931, noting that property owners around the lake held swimming and fishing privileges, but that the Station could otherwise control the lake. He offered Lots 23 and 24 for $2,500.

The Highlands Maconian reported on April 8, 1931 that Lindenwood Lake had been selected as the experiment station site. The article noted that two

to three acres were being purchased for a building—and that Trustees were also securing title to a narrow strip around much of the shoreline, giving the Station virtual control of the lake.

On April 17, 1931, Albertina Staub—an insurance and real estate broker in Highlands, and secretary/treasurer for the Museum and Laboratory—wrote to E. E. Reinke emphasizing the urgency of closing the transaction. She described the consolidation of lots and lake rights into a single deed, warning that delay could jeopardize progress.

By June 1931, Clark Foreman was writing to Mayor William S. Davis to request city water and electricity, highlighting the notoriety and value the laboratory would bring to Highlands. The City agreed to help.

Lake with Samuel T. Weyman Memorial Building in background. c. 1931

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Lake with Renovated Weyman and Coker Laboratory Buildings in background August, 1961

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Funding the First Footprint (May–August 1931)

A committee began raising funds to purchase land around the lake. Lindenwood Lake—about five acres—was purchased on May 7, 1931 for $1,500.

The Board’s August 1931 financial statement confirms the purchase payments associated with the lake property, including the first payment to Frank Potts, related expenses, and the second payment plus interest due in April 1932.

A New Name: Ravenel Lake (August 1931) … and Back Again (2005)

The Samuel T. Weyman Memorial Laboratory was built between June and July 1931 and dedicated on August 29 of that year. At the Station’s annual meeting that summer, Clark Foreman proposed renaming Lindenwood Lake as Ravenel Lake, recognizing the family whose earlier development of the lake helped shape the landscape that would later become the site of the laboratory.

Station director Dr. A. A. Reinke also noted the Ravenel name’s broader significance in the history of Southern biology. One of the family’s distant relatives, Henry William Ravenel, was a pioneering 19th-century botanist whose work documenting fungi and other cryptogams of the American South earned international recognition.

In 2005, the lake’s name was changed back to Lindenwood. While no Board minutes have been found explaining the decision, it is thought the change may have been made to avoid confusion with another Lake Ravenel nearby. The linden tree (Tilia heterophylla), also known as basswood, grows naturally in Highlands—though it is less abundant today.

What’s in a Name?

The Highlands Maconian reported on the name change on Sept 9, 1931, noting “Henry William Ravenel (1814-1887) was born in South Carolina. Self-taught, he devoted himself to botany with enthusiasm and success. He critically studied flowering plants, mosses, lichens, fungi, and algae and his knowledge of cryptograms flora of the Southern States was unsurpassed. He was Agricultural Editor of the Charleston Weekly News and Courier and botanist to the S. C. Department of Agriculture. Ravenel was best known for his Fungi Caroliniani Exsuicati in five volumes 1852-1856, each containing 100 meticulously prepared and labeled dried specimens of fungi found primarily in South Carolina.” With only 30 copies produced, the compendium was the first major effort to document the fungi of North America since the work of Lewis David von Schweinitz and formed the nucleus of what is now the National Fungus Collection. (Digitized versions of the volumes are available online.)

His name is also preserved as Raveneliaceae, rust, fungi, a genius of Uredinales and by many species of Cryptograms, and is one of the largest genera of the order Pucciniales with more than 323 species described and found worldwide.

Ravenel was ruined financially by the Civil War, but he continued his research and work to the end of his life.” The University of North Carolina gave him the degree of LL.D. in 1886.

The Dam: A Beautiful Lake, a Persistent Problem (1931–1942)

Soon after the Station acquired the lake, the dam began to demand attention.

On December 17, 1931, Frank B. Cook submitted a small bill for labor on the dam after heavy rains produced “two or three very bad looking leaks.” In his letter, he wrote that he took the “bull by the horns” and acted immediately.

A more serious warning arrived on November 20, 1936, when Acting Regional Forester Mr. Pidgeon inspected the dam. His report described an earth dike with log cribbing, significant seepage, and a crest only 1½ to 2 feet above water level. He recommended draining the lake and rebuilding with a clay blanket to improve stability, as well as constructing the dam higher.

No major action appears

to have been taken until August 1940, when due to an unnamed inland hurricane the dam broke—sending a wall of water down Mill Creek and washing out the bridge over Highway 26 (Cashiers Road).

In the weeks that followed, W. C. Coker urged Board Chair William Lippincott to decide whether and how the dam should be replaced, granting a small group the authority to act. Coker consulted Duke Power, which recommended replacing planks along both sides of the earth dam—an

estimated $3,000 project. Fundraising followed.

By February 1942, contractor J. H. Harkey had completed much of the reconstruction and requested partial payment. Trustees reported in August 1942 that the dam had been restored—six inches higher than before—at a cost of $3,304.29, with Coker paying half.

Report and Map by Mr. Pigdeon, November 20, 1936

Dam Cross Section for reconstruction, December 1941

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Marking and Protecting the Property (1942)

With repairs complete, the Station also moved to clarify boundaries and reduce trespassing. Trustees erected a gate designed by Museum Director Tom Fitz Patrick, marked by a sign reading “Weyman Memorial Laboratory.” Additional signs were placed at strategic points to prohibit unauthorized use.

Newspaper coverage in September 1942 emphasized that the rebuilt dam restored the lake not simply as a beauty spot, but as an experimental site for aquatic study.

Weyman Memorial Laboratory Sign on Lindenwood Lake Spillway Tom Fitz Patrick, Director of Highlands Museum, 1942

The Sept 3, 1942 issue of the Franklin Press and the Highlands Maconian reported that Dr. Coker said “the rebuilding of the dam near the laboratory, which has brought back beautiful Lake Ravenel to its original state, was made possible through gifts by friends of the laboratory. The lake is not merely another one of Highland’s beauty spots, but is an experimental site for the study of aquatic life. A handsome, new entrance gateway has been erected at the north end of the dam.”

Managing the Lake as a Research Resource (1942–1948)

In August 1942, Trustees agreed to stock the lake with brook trout and adopted fishing regulations. A Lake Supervisor would determine fishing days and creel limits, and eligible fishing privileges were limited to defined groups associated with the Station and surrounding property ownership. The lake would be patrolled if funding could be raised.

By June 1944, Thelma Howell—Summer Director of HBS—served as Lake Supervisor and reported on a biological improvement program conducted in cooperation with the State of North Carolina.

But she also delivered a sobering message: vandalism, broken windows, damaged bridges, and destructive behavior on the dam and grounds threatened both the lake and the laboratory.

That same year, creel reports recorded fish size classes and total harvest weight from issued permits (not including property owners who did not report).

In 1946, Trustees discussed swimming use and concluded that swimming should not be allowed, due to ongoing scientific work. In June 1947, Howell reported that an auxiliary spillway bridge was damaged when guests crowded into a small

area to watch a tadpole—an incident that underscores how fragile infrastructure can be at the intersection of curiosity and access.

In 1948, further maintenance continued; the spillway and dam were tested by flood conditions and were reported to have held.

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Modern Repairs and Replacement (1988–1997)

Concerns resurfaced decades later. In 1988, Director Dr. Richard C. Bruce noted a leak that could reduce lake water levels and affect nearby property. Inspectors concluded the leak related to a drainage pipe opening and advised that repairs would be needed.

By late fall 1997, replacement became reality. The lake was drained; tall rhododendrons around the dam were removed; and the rebuilt structure was constructed to meet federal regulations.

Lindenwood Lake drained for dam repair, fall 1997

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The Lots: The Long Work of Assembling a Campus

The detailed ownership history of lots around the lake reflects decades of complex acquisition—and deep devotion to building a permanent home for science in Highlands. The compilation of titles and deeds is offered as accurately as possible based on historical documents and deed research, with the understanding that it is not a legal title record. Corrections are welcomed.

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