The view from Nan Kirby’s dock has changed drastically over the past two decades. The island behind her has formed over time and filled in the portion of Lake Hollybrook near her home. Staff photo by Laura Lane
A tall tree grows on an island that’s formed on one end of Lake Hollybrook. (Laura Lane / Herald-Times)
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GOSPORT — Rushing water from Limestone Creek used to spill into Lake Hollybrook not far from the dock at Nan Kirby’s place. It wasn’t all that long ago when she would ease her fishing boat down to the deep water and set out seeking bluegill and largemouth bass.
These days, as the lake fills in with sediment and gravel residents suspect is coming downstream in the White River from a nearby gravel quarry, the water grows shallower with time. A good-sized island, with tall grass and scrub trees, has risen from the lake just beyond Kirby’s dock. She can walk through the water to reach the new landform.
For the past five years or so, residents living along the shore have been watching the lake shrink before their eyes. It should be 5 feet deep at its low point and 14 feet at the deepest. But recent measurements taken by homeowner Tim Christian from a canoe show Lake Hollybrook’s depth ranges from 6 inches to just 6 feet.
“Forty percent of our lake has disappeared, and we have an island that’s equivalent to 60 football fields,” said Christian, the homeowners’ association treasurer and a Lake Hollybrook resident since August 2019. “We’re a sediment pond for the West Fork of the White River.”
He and his wife, Teresa, who is from Owen County, moved to the lake to have a place their nine grandchildren could visit and have fun. “One reason we moved here was so the grandkids could enjoy the lake,” Teresa Christian said. “As it is, they won’t go out in the water ‘cause they want more than 24 inches to swim in. We’ve got a 3-year-old who fell in, and it was no big deal.”
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