Cleveland Lakefront Nature Preserve

Cleveland Lakefront Nature Preserve (CLNP)

A unique urban wildlife haven on Lake Erie.

The original shoreline at the site was part of the land William Gordon willed to the City of Cleveland in 1896 for use as a public park (now Gordon Park). In 1962, two old freighters were sunk offshore to create a break wall to protect the park’s beach. During this time it was not uncommon for solid waste to be dumped along the lakeshore. The waste eventually formed an approximately 10-acre area between the sunken freighters and the shoreline. The Preserve’s landmass began taking shape in the late 1970’s as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) disposed of sediment dredged from the Cuyahoga River in a walled-off area that just out from the Lake Erie shoreline.

The USACE placed sediment in a confined disposal facility (CDF) called Dike 14 from 1979 1999 as part of its program to dredge the Cuyahoga River. The USACE designed the contours of Dike 14 to encompass the entire area.

Over the years, layers of sediment – essentially sand, soil and clay – were placed within the walls of Dike 14. After the USACE stopped using Dike 14 as a CDF, nature took hold and with very little human intervention, the peninsula became filled with plants, trees and shrubs that attracted diverse species of birds and other wildlife. Dike 14 is now known as the Cleveland Lakefront Nature Preserve.