{"id":117987,"date":"2016-10-14T09:25:52","date_gmt":"2016-10-14T13:25:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=117987"},"modified":"2016-10-20T09:50:07","modified_gmt":"2016-10-20T13:50:07","slug":"reflections-mirror-lake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2016\/10\/reflections-mirror-lake\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on Mirror Lake"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, Mirror Lake is one of UConn\u2019s favorite places to read, relax, or ride on the wooden swing. But when the University was founded in 1881,\u00a0the lake didn’t exist.<\/p>\n

\"Playing<\/a>
Playing the guitar at Mirror Lake on Sept. 26, 2016. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/div>
A student plays the guitar at Mirror Lake in September 2016. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"painter160921a463\"<\/a>
painter160921a463<\/div>
An artist paints a scene at Mirror Lake in September 2016. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"Fishing<\/a>
Fishing at Mirror Lake on Aug. 29, 2015. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/div>
Fishing at Mirror Lake in August 2015. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"(Bri<\/a>
(Bri Diaz)<\/div>
Mirror Lake with Storrs Center and Fine Arts buildings in the background. (Bri Diaz\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"mirrorlakefallwalk141010c729\"<\/a>
mirrorlakefallwalk141010c729<\/div>
Students walk over the dam at Mirror Lake in October 2014. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"Students<\/a>
Students swing near Mirror Lake on Oct. 10, 2014. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/div>
Students enjoy the swings near Mirror Lake in October 2014. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"mirrorswing140428c162\"<\/a>
mirrorswing140428c162<\/div>
Students relax on the swings near Mirror Lake in April 2014. (FJ Gaylor for UConn)<\/div><\/div>\"camera130408f118\"<\/a>
camera130408f118<\/div>
Students enjoy a spring day beside Mirror Lake in April 2013. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"dog130920d038\"<\/a>
dog130920d038<\/div>
Students play with their puppy beside Mirror Lake in 2013. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"guitar100407d018\"<\/a>
guitar100407d018<\/div>
Alex Bansak '12 (CLAS) plays the guitar beside Mirror Lake, as Ashley Misir '13 (CLAS) and Josh Bickford '11 (CLAS) listen, in April 2010.<\/div><\/div>\"jhoward091021b173\"<\/a>
jhoward091021b173<\/div>
A candelight vigil in memory of slain UConn football player Jasper Howard proceeds to Mirror Lake in 2009. (UConn File Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"The<\/a>
The Inaugural fireworks as viewed from alongside Mirror Lake.<\/div>
Students watch fireworks from beside Mirror Lake, during President Michael Hogan's inaugural event in April 2008. (UConn File Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"Michelle<\/a>
Michelle Slajda, a freshman, practices her viola by Mirror Lake.<\/div>
Michelle Slajda practices her viola by Mirror Lake in March 2008. (UConn File Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"Students<\/a>
Students walk along the path next to Mirror Lake.<\/div>
Students walk along the path next to Mirror Lake in April 2008. (UConn File Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"Emily<\/a>
Emily Nirshberg, a 7th semester English major, studies alongside mirror lake.<\/div>
A student studies alongside Mirror Lake in 2007. (UConn File Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"Students<\/a>
Students walk past a historic marker placed near Mirror Lake.<\/div>
Students walk past a historic marker placed near Mirror Lake to mark the University's 125th anniversary in 2006. (UConn File Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"lake18\"<\/a>
lake18<\/div>
Studying beside Mirror Lake.<\/div><\/div>\"bugnets053\"<\/a>
bugnets053<\/div>
Students in a biology class take nets into the water of Mirror Lake to look at the life in the water, and also check the pH level of the water. (UConn File Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"winterwobw\"<\/a>
winterwobw<\/div>
Mirror Lake and Manchester Hall after a snowfall in March 1997. (David Ruddy\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"Mirror<\/a>
Mirror Lake and Manchester Hall. PHOTO BY PETER MORENUS<\/div>
Mirror Lake and Manchester Hall, with geese, in 1997. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"Ducks<\/a>
Ducks walking by the Mirror Lake.PHOTO BY JONATHAN COHEN<\/div>
White ducks walking by Mirror Lake in 1996. (Jonathan Cohen\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

The site was once a marshy meadow, fed by a small brook, that in summer became a breeding ground for swarms of mosquitoes.<\/p>\n

In 1918, Connecticut Agricultural College, as the school was then known,\u00a0acquired the land from the Whitney family. At that time, the now picturesque island with its lofty evergreens was just a clump of weeds and rushes. A small wooden dam was located at the northeast corner, forming what was barely a pond and more like a swamp.<\/p>\n

Swan Lake, on the other hand, was the scene of many activities in the college’s early years \u2013 when it was generally known as the Duck Pond. From 1908, the freshman and sophomore classes held an annual rope pulling contest\u00a0there. The lake was also used for ice skating; and for many years in the pre-refrigerator era, students harvested blocks of ice to service the ice chests of the campus creamery, dining halls, and faculty homes.<\/p>\n

Then in 1922, the wooden dam was replaced with a soil dam. (The dam was reinforced in 1935 after heavy spring rains caused a leak; and in 1946, the lake was dredged and the dam again replaced.)<\/p>\n

\"mirror-lake-drained-new-dam-1_1946_cropped\"<\/a>
mirror-lake-drained-new-dam-1_1946_cropped<\/div>
Mirror Lake, showing the new dam in 1946. In the background is Manchester Hall, and Storrs Congregational Church. (Archives & Special Collections, UConn Library)<\/div><\/div>\"mirror-lake-dredging-1_1947_cropped\"<\/a>
mirror-lake-dredging-1_1947_cropped<\/div>
Dredging Mirror Lake in the 1940s. Manchester Hall is in the background. (Archives & Special Collections, UConn Library)<\/div><\/div>\"mirror-lake-dredging1947_cropped\"<\/a>
mirror-lake-dredging1947_cropped<\/div>
Dredging Mirror Lake in the 1940s. (Archives & Special Collections, UConn Library)<\/div><\/div>\"mirror-lake-drained-new-dam-1946_cropped\"<\/a>
mirror-lake-drained-new-dam-1946_cropped<\/div>
Mirror Lake drained, showing the new dam, in 1946. (Archives & Special Collections, UConn Library)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

The original work was announced in May 1922 in The Connecticut Campus<\/em> (forerunner to The Daily Campus<\/em>), and was scheduled for completion in early July. The dam was to be about 250 feet long, and was intended to flood about four acres, with a maximum depth of six feet. Weeds were cleared; earth was moved to build up a mound, forming the island; and pine seedlings were planted. There was already talk of moving the annual rope pull from Swan Lake.<\/p>\n

An important part of the project was to eliminate the pools where mosquitoes bred: it was hoped the new lake would “alleviate the mosquito menace” for\u00a0faculty families living nearby.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0fall 1922, when students returned, The Connecticut Campus<\/em> held a contest “to have the honor of originating a name that will go down in the history of the college for the new lake.”<\/p>\n

In October, Mirror Lake was selected as the name from among those proposed, which included Meadow Lake, Zephyr Lake, Sunset Lake, Lake Hollister, Pine Grove Pond, Shadow Lake, Bantam Lake, Mansfield Lake, Fairview Lake, Merrythought Lake, Rainbow Lake, and Friendship Lake.<\/p>\n

The rope pull, which would last into the 1950s, was moved to its shores. Late in the 1930s, the pines were replaced with spruces planted by Professor Albert E. Moss of the College of Agriculture. Some of the pines had fallen, and others were damaged by muskrats that lived on the lake; those critters were trapped and removed.<\/p>\n

There have been other critter problems since then, too: in the 1970s and 1980s the lake suffered from an overpopulation of ducks and Canada geese. Concerned about how these wild animals would fare during the winter, some local residents began feeding the birds daily. With meals readily available, the birds stopped migrating to warmer regions. And seagulls started to congregate as well. Soon the lake was dying from an overabundance of excrement. Feeding the birds was banned by state statute in the 1980s, and game wardens moved the waterfowl to other locales.<\/p>\n

At times, there have been brightly colored fish \u2013 orange or combinations of orange, yellow, black, and white \u2013 living in the lake, the descendants of abandoned pet goldfish. And for a time after the mid-1960s, there were also white ducks paddling through the water \u2013 more abandoned pets, gifts between students at Easter that could no longer be hidden in dorm rooms.<\/p>\n

Occasionally, still, a heron can be seen perched on a rock near the island.<\/p>\n

Although students used to use the lake for boating, sailing, and ice skating, the opening of the UConn Ice Rink in 1965 (which preceded the Freitas Ice Forum) brought an end to its use for skating, and human activity in or on the water is no longer allowed. Ice skating does, however, continue in winter on Swan Lake.<\/p>\n

Sources: Connecticut Campus, May 11 and Oct. 19, 1922; Connecticut Daily Campus, May 10, 1967, “Paradise for Ducks, Turtles, Lovers,” Cornelia Anderson; unpublished manuscript, Evan Hill, 1980.<\/em><\/p>\n

Adapted from an article by Mark Roy in the UConn Advance,<\/em> Sept. 29, 1997.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mirror Lake is now one of the favorite places to relax on the Storrs campus, but it was once nothing but a marshy swamp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":118025,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,2225,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[117],"class_list":["post-117987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gallery","category-uconn-storrs","category-university-life","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 05:36:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117987"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118207,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117987\/revisions\/118207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/118025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117987"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=117987"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=117987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}