A stinging tribute or not?

Is Mosquito Creek Reservoir really just a nickname for Lake McKinley?
By TIM YOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
BAZETTA -- How did Mosquito Lake get its name?
Debated on radio talk shows and in private for years, the question arose again after state Rep. Randy Law of Warren, R-64th, recently said he favors a name change.
Law is a member of a task force exploring the idea of creating a lodge at the reservoir. Marketing a lodge and surrounding attractions may be easier with a more attractive name, he figures.
The man-made lake -- actually, Mosquito Creek Reservoir -- is named after Mosquito Creek, a small stream that ran through the farming area of Bazetta and Mecca townships.
How, then, did the creek get its name?
Based on news accounts, local histories, documents at the Warren-Trumbull County Public Library and personal testimony, land around the creek was swamp. It spawned pesky insects during summers before it was dammed.
What old map shows
Emily Varner, archivist at the Trumbull County Recorder's Office, said an 1810 county map shows the name of "Mosquitoville" in what's now Bazetta Township, so-named because of the biting insects.
Varner said the township was founded in 1804.
According to the area's history, written by Thomas J. Kachur in 1983, the creek's shallow and stagnant water during the summer months created the mosquito menace for swimmers, fishermen, livestock and those living close by.
Kachur wrote that R. Scofield Abell, daughter of Edward Scofield, one of the first settlers in Bazetta, said after her father settled in Bazetta that it needed a name from the Bible. Kachur couldn't locate the name Bazetta in the Bible, but noted there is a reference to "Beth-zatha," a pool of water in Jerusalem. The water from the pool was believed to have healing powers.
The dam on the creek was completed in 1944 to provide a constant water supply to the steel industry during World War II, for flood control and to serve as a source of Warren's drinking water.
Mary Urchek, 92, lives on the east side of the lake along state Route 46. Her father, John Kachur, bought a 104-acre farm in 1933.
She, too, said that the creek was named after the insects that reproduced in the lowlands around the creek. It was so marshy, Urchek recalled, farmers couldn't plow close to it.
By the time the government had bought up the farms, the Urcheks had 21 acres left out of the original 104.
Not a new thing
Suggestion of changing the reservoir name isn't new.
In 1943, when the War Production Board approved $3.5 million for the construction of the Mosquito Creek Reservoir, there were some Warren officials who wanted the name changed to Kirwan Reservoir.
U.S. Rep. Michael J. Kirwan represented the Mahoning Valley in Congress at the time. He went on to represent the Valley for 34 years.
That proposed change went nowhere. Instead, the Michael J. Kirwan Reservoir at West Branch State Park is named after the late congressman.
In 1965, when the Ohio House passed a measure that provided $850,000 to improve the lake, a six-member naming committee recommended to then-state Rep. Margaret Dennison that the name be changed to Lake McKinley in honor of this country's 25th President, William McKinley, a Niles native.
Dennison, also a former Trumbull County commissioner, explained in a February 1986 newspaper column that a legislator from another district wisecracked to her about not spending any taxpayer dollars on a state park named "Mosquito" -- because nobody would ever go there.
Dennison countered that the area is well used. "Immediately, people began calling me and stopping me on the street to support my 'crusade' to change the name of Mosquito Lake," she wrote. "I had no intention of changing the name of Mosquito Lake. I was just telling a funny story, but I found I had a tiger by the tail, on a giant mosquito's stinger."
Committee was appointed
Sentiment ran too high to ignore, so she appointed a committee to look into the name change and came up with "McKinley." Dennison wrote that she introduced the name-change legislation.
"I believe that deep in the archives somewhere you'll find that proper authority renamed the lake 'McKinley' and that 'Mosquito' is now a nickname," Dennison added.
Even a May 2000 article in HeartLand Boating maintains the name was changed to Lake McKinley to honor the former president.
That's not true, according to the Ohio General Assembly's Legislative Services Commission Library in Columbus.
Dennison had introduced HB 948 in 1965, which would change the name from Mosquito to McKinley. According to the library, the measure passed the House and was sent on to a Senate committee -- where it died.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said that despite what Dennison reported, the lake is federally owned by the Corps, and the Ohio Legislature has no authority to change the name.
"My information was that many local businesses and citizens felt that Mosquito is the accustomed, time-honored name with a character that defies modern public relations hype," Dennison lamented years ago. "Since it is known as Mosquito to all who know it, I would respectfully suggest from experience that we leave it alone. To change it is to get stung."
yovich@vindy.com