The Lake was built during WW2 by Fred Reynolds, brother of Ted Reynolds. (Ted was the minister of a church that was located south of the new Absentee Shawnee Resources Center on Peebly Rd. The building minus the steeple is still standing.

Fred was a former mayor of Norman and a local rancher. During the 40s and 50s the land around the Lake was also the home to a large herd of Brahma cattle. Reynolds was in the rental and property management business and may have built the Lake because of the naval Base in Norman.

Construction of the base was largely completed by 1944 and many of the contractors were without jobs. Reynolds was said to be a man that looked for a bargain, so he hired the contractors to build the lake. The lake, he hoped, would become a major recreation center with boating, fishing, and picnicking because it was the largest body of water in the area. Norman was also the home of two large Navy bases.

Kids that visited the Lake (in the 1950s) remember several fishing piers, boat rentals, bait sales and other concessions. A small cabin was located on the West end of the dam servicing as the managers office.

Sunny Stewart, Pastor at Little Axe First Baptist, remembers he and his brother selling worms to the bait stand for resale to fishermen.

Many locals and people from Norman remember Reynolds Lake as an excellent fishing lake and a great place to swim.

In the early 1960s the Lake was the major search area for a lady from Moore that disappeared. The lake managers said that two men and a lady paid their admission, the men came to the cabin and asked to borrow a shovel, later the men were noticed to leave alone. Authorities searched the west side of the lake for several days without results.

A land developer, Lee Pace, acquired the property in the 1970s and opened the lake to home sales. (It is rumored) that Pace raised the height of the dam to increase the lake size and have more lake front lots to sell.

Contributing to this article were conversations with Larry Cockerman, Margaret & Ted Rosenfelt, James Bruesch, Sunny Stewart, Bill Paul, & Ray Wilcox.

- First published in the August 2007 issue of “from Soup to Nuts”
courtesy Jim Gard