Rolling hills, natural protection, and cool waters made the lake a perfect camp area for generations of Shawnee Indians. Even then, the bowl-shaped lake on the Bluestone River was a family gathering place.
Years later Conley and Maybelle Snidow purchased the one hundred-fifty acre Daniel Day farm on the Bluestone River, five miles north of Princeton near Kegley, West Virginia. The land was probably purchased as the site of a farm, but there was much in store for this historical place of family.
Conley Snidow said at one time he planned to spend forty to fifty dollars to make an earthen dam and create a lake in the middle of his beloved bottom filled with small shells he called "Periwinkle Bottom.”
Shawnee Lake, named by Maybelle Snidow, was on its way to become a prime resort for a generation and one of the first tourism areas in the region. Early visitors to the lake found Shawnee Indian arrowheads and others artifacts by the handful. Artifact finds continue today.
Lake Shawnee opened for swimming in the summer of 1924. Most weren't bathers, but those who chose to swim dressed in a small building with a dirt floor. The building became the concession area called Shawnee Lodge. The pool floor was mud and, the diving area was a single tree in the middle of the lake.
That year Snidow bought out his partner Alex Kames. By the summer of 1925, Snidow had constructed a large two-story structure with dressing rooms, shower, lockers, and a sales office with a pavilion and living quarters on the second floor. There was a large porch for spectators, row boats, boat dock, and a new picnic area with over 3,000 newly-planted silver maples.
Public dances were scheduled every Tuesday and Friday nights. Over the next few years seventeen vacation cottages were built, and at ten dollars per week, including swimming, Lake Shawnee became a very popular vacation spot.
The summer of 1924 demonstrated that no one owned a bathing suit. Suits and towels were purchased for rentals. Total fee for daily suit rental, towel, locker, and pool entry was just sixty-five cents.
Lake Shawnee was an immediate hit when it opened for the 1925 season. Crowds came from fifty to seventy-five miles away.
To swim, to picnic, to see or be seen, Lake Shawnee was the place to be. The lighted pool area drew large after-work crowds, and the 1925 Fourth of July celebration was estimated to exceed 10,000.
Paved roads and better transportation gave more access to beaches and other resorts both in state and in the coastal regions. Lake Shawnee gradually ceased to be the main attraction, but continued to be a popular area for people, young and old, for over fifty years.
Written by The Old Town Princeton Foundation, Inc. | 
