Many people think Gardner Lake is part of the city of Gardner. Many people do not know the history of the lake’s construction.

For the past six months the Gardner Historical Museum has hosted an exhibit accompanying Amy Heaven’s book on the first thirty years of the WPA project.

“Looking Back at Gardner Lake” dives deep into the largest WPA project in Johnson County with detailed stories and photos from families that helped build the lake for a means of survival during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl years and those who lived at the lake during its “resort years.”

“It was a much needed and important story to tell,” Heaven said.

The most comprehensive book ever written about its history shares thoughtful details of President Herbert Hoover’s Great Depression era policies setting the stage for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal policies including the Workers Progress Administration that helped with economic relief that benefited the Gardner-area for years to come.

It took 100 to 225 men to build the lake. The lake began with 100 lake lots sold for $100 each and $10 down.

When the rest of the country recovered from its worst time period, Heaven details the lake’s transformation as a resort community during the mid-20th century that gave families a recreational haven including an events venue, a rollerskating ring, a country club, its own newsletter “The Spillway” and more.

State funding was cutoff in 1935.The camp was dismantled in 1939.

Some of the old transient camp buildings from the WPA 1930s era were moved to the Johnson County fairgrounds and reassembled.They are still currently used today.

Today Gardner Lake is known as a private lakeside neighborhood community run by the Gardner Lake Association. It transformed to what it is today after the hall burned down.

The exhibit at the Gardner Museum on Main Street comes to an end at the end of the year. The photos, newspaper clippings and mementos weave a tale with the book showing how the water was the constant reliable force and brought the community together through different eras of the 20th Century.

The book is 176 pages with 75 plus photos and a 200 plus name index, personal interviews, resident stories that will bring back many memories for the older Gardner community.

Heaven is a career general aviation aircraft broker and aviator with a passion for preserving history. She returned to Gardner after living in Lexington, Missouri for twenty years.

She said she became captivated by the history of Gardner Lake when renovating her new home in 2011. Heaven said she soon realized the history of the lake had never been shared in one detailed place such as the current exhibit or her book. While she has had a career on the side as a small publications article writer this is her first book.