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Watkins Island Foundation Inc. George H. WatkinsThe Father of Buckeye Lake As the OhioErie Canal declined in the late 1800s the old Licking Summit Reservoir became a hodgepodge of semipublic water supply waste disposal and flood control. Although previously designated by the Ohio Legislature in 1894 to become a public park little had been done to spur its development as such in the decade that followed.