HERITAGE POND

HERITAGE POND. Located between Dubuque and Sageville to the west of Highway 52, Heritage Pond has been the source of many urban myths. Perhaps the most repeated story was that it was the site of a gravel pit that suddenly flooded--trapping a crane. Fishermen in boats, it was said, often snagged their lines on the tip of the machine. (1)

Brian Preston, Dubuque County Conservation Board executive director, in an article for the Telegraph Herald on January 5, 2011, said there was not a lot of information about the development of the pond. It lies in the Couler Valley, the former channel of the Little Maquoketa River. Between 1 million and 2 million years ago, the Little Maquoketa and the MISSISSIPPI RIVER eroded the land that separated them, and the Little Maquoketa changed its course flowing into the Mississippi north of the present JOHN DEERE DUBUQUE WORKS. (2)

It is believed the pond was once a marsh from which rock was excavated for construction projects.

In 1992 Heritage Pond was added to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources list for trout stocking. In November, personnel of the DNR stocked 1,500 rainbow trout. This was the first of three stockings of trout (4,500 fish total) to be made. While adding fishing enjoyment to anglers, the rainbow will not reproduce in the pond because the water temperature during the summer. Fish for the pond came from the Manchester hatchery. (3)

In 2011 the pond covered approximately 9 acres and was at most twenty feet deep. It contained such varieties of fish as bluegill, crappie, largemouth bass, catfish, bullheads, and pike. Rainbow trout continue to be stocked. (4)

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Source:

1. "Heritage Pond: Man-made Lake or Natural?," Telegraph Herald, January 5, 2011, p. 3

2. Ibid.

3. Reber, Craig, "Heritage Pond New Trout Stocking Spot," Telegraph-Herald, November 29, 1992, p. 16

4. "Heritage Pond..."