Has anyone ever attempted to clean out the lagoons?

Its just a question of curiosity. I was thinking about this the other day. The lagoons have been a part of CP for a very long time and even used to have quests rowing small boats on them to get to the island in the middle. I have seen plenty of old pics of this. My point is people would have certainly dropped a thing or two as they do even now into those lagoons. So has there ever been an attempt at cleaning them out? If so besides mountains upon mountains of plastic garbage has anything significant ever been found? Coins? Jewelry? Buttons? Tourist items? Tools? I can honestly say it would fascinate me to have a look at such things if it were ever attempted.

I know when they built shoot the rapids they drained a good portion of the west side of the lagoon. Dont really know if they found anything cool though.

There's probably a few cell phones in there.

I'm not so sure what they'd find in there, but I'd be very interested to find out. I don't know of any circumstance where they drained it, however if they did, I'm sure they'd find a lot of interesting things in there.

I know this past summer they drained Mirror Lake at Ohio State, and they found a few interesting things in there as well. Check it out for yourself: https://fisher.osu.edu/blogs/gradlife/2010/11/30/mirror-lake-drained-what-was-in-it/

There's got to be some awesome, old stuff in the lagoon as well.

They're pretty much drained every year, or at least, every off-season I've been in there. Maybe not 100% in every location, but they can control the depth I believe with some pumps that you can see near the Iron Dragon station.

Things lost in the lagoons reminds me of a true experience from my youth - as unbelievable as it may sound.

When I was young (early 1960's not many years after CP had opened as an amusement park), we went to the Point for a short summer vacation. We were staying on site, and my father, being an avid fisherman, liked to get up early to "throw a line in". He decided it would be cool to take me and my brothers over to the area where the ferry depot used to be (Famous Dave's area) on the lake side and try some fishing. In those days, CP was not a one price fenced in park. So, you could essentially walk into it at any time. Well, after seeing those big fish on the river boat ride, he decided it would be neat to try and fish the lagoons. He parked close to the train tracks, looked twice for security, and we hiked to the nearest lagoon. Actually caught some big carp for the sport and let them go. Unfortunately, one of us had set our pole down to do something while the line was in the water. Fish took the bait and pulled the rod into the lagoon with the old man running after it. Funny to watch, but he was pissed off to have lost a nice pole.

Next year, we visited again and, true to form, got up early to do some fishing. Went to the same lagoon spot. One of us threw our line in and got it stuck on a submerged tree limb. Couldn't get it free and didn't have a knife to cut the line, so Pop takes the pole and tries reeling it all in so he can untangle it. Out of the water comes a branch alright and attached to it is the pole we lost the prior year. We all had a good laugh and a great memory was made.

Not about the Lagoons...but a funny story. One offseason I was walking from Breakers to Sandcastle along the lake front path and something down in the sand caught my eye. I jumped down and found a change/key holder...like the kind you put around your neck. When I opened it up it was full of water, and about $70 in cash.

I took it back to my office and put it in a drawer, thinking someone might call and say they lost it. I held onto it for three years and forgot about it until I was cleaning out my desk when I resigned. There it was. So, I figured the statute of limitations had passed. I gave $30 to my church and used the rest to top off the U-Haul truck before heading south.

You find some pretty interesting things in both the hotels and in employee housing at the end of the season too. But, I won't go into details.

I would imagine they are mostly filled with trash. People seem to love to litter when they are bored in line.

This thread alone, seems to indicate great potential in having a look at the lagoon areas, I wonder if the park would object to someone having a better look with a metal detector in the off season. I would love to have a go at it and would simply donate all found materials to the CP museum. I do it for the thrill of finding a piece of history and I personally know I lost many things in the lake around the park. One year I was going about 45 mph on calms water out from Hotel Breakers on my wave runner when I hit a wave at a funny angle. I dipped into the water in a hard crash. Lost my beach safe my hat, my necklace and even a cell phone and distress radio. I wasnt planning on doing anything to wild so I traveled heavy. Heck Chief if you found that safe in 07 or 08 it could have been mine but dont think I want it. I considered all those items gone after about a 45 minute search. If anyone knows if the park would mind me taking a poke around the lagoons with a metal detector let me know. I would really like to take a try at it.

Zeek said:
There's probably a few cell phones in there.

I wonder how those got there Zeek........

They look so gross with all that algae.

The algae is nice, added a little something to the Bayou.

I would think they would do some kind of cleaning of the lagoons now that Paddlewheel is gone.

Hopefully they add some fountains or something. Without the boats driving around, that water is probably going to get quite stagnant.

What are you talking about, cleaning? It's a quasi-natural body of water, not a bath tub. Of course there will be things growing in it. That's nature.

Weren't the lagoons originally dug to drain the north end of the peninsula?

I don't know about the validity of this, but I heard that back in the 20s (when the lagoons were still open to the lake) Capone's guys would run boats right in from Canada to offload illegal hooch. A tunnel supposedly existed to get it into the basement of Breakers where there was a speakeasy as well as a casino. Reportedly when construction crews were excavating on Millennium Island for it's namesake's construction they found a cache of old bottles, some of which sat on the roof of one of the Paddlewheel Excursions buildings until its recent demise.

The lagoons were dug to drain the marshy areas of the park and I think they have a done a great job of it. I would like to have seen pics of them finding all those bottles and or the tunnel {if indeed that is true}

ive always loved the lagoons and there amazing history