Posted on July 23, 2025
Chase Carter couldn’t help but glance skyward every now and again as ominous thunderclouds bore down on a small group of interested residents gathered last week to hear his update on progress of restoration efforts at Milton’s iconic Locklin Lake.
Rain would be arriving soon, as it had for 29 of the first 30 days Carter’s dredging team from Carter Contracting had been working to pull years of collected sediment from the bottom of the empty lake.
“We tried to go that way,” he said, waving an arm at the south bank of the small lake. “But it’s like mush. We couldn’t.”
The rain has only redirected efforts, not halted them, Carter reported, and he said crews this week hope to begin hauling muck collected from a different part of the lake away while the dredging crew, with some luck, can focus on the portion they’d hope to start upon.
Milton City Manager Ed Spears had set up the July 16 project update meeting the day before it was held on the Locklin Lake dam. He’d done so, according to City Councilwoman Marilynn Farrow, at the request of the Locklin Lake Homeowners Association.
“We’ve been getting to this day for 13 years now,” said Matt Dollhausen, the president of the HOA. “Is it going to come out perfect? No. Is it going to be better? Absolutely.”
While the little body of water known as Locklin Lake has been something of an afterthought in recent years, its creation is in large part responsible for the establishment of the city of Milton itself.
It is believed that sometime between 1828 and 1830 a man by the name of Benjamin Jernigan constructed a dam to catch water flowing from two streams to provide a location at which he could operate a sawmill. That body of water, which would only much later become known as Locklin Lake, created a basin around which a mill town, later just Milton, grew up and a city was founded in 1844.
Burt Locklin grew up on Locklin Lake in the 1950s after his father purchased land there. He presently owns eight acres on the water that includes a good portion of the since-renovated dam that created the lake.
More: Efforts are getting underway to restore Locklin Lake, “the heart of Milton.”
Locklin recalled an area just east of the dam site as the location of a skating rink and one to the west where an 18-hole carpet golf course had once resided next to a concession stand that sold hot dogs and cold drinks. Across the lake, Locklin told a reporter, there had been a swimming beach at which he recalled paying a quarter to swim all day and being able to open his eyes underwater and see further than he was able to travel while holding his breath.
But Jernigan’s fine choice of a location to build a dam would prove to be detrimental to the health of the lake as the city grew up around it. Herb Harbison, whose dad bought a lot on the lake in 1960, estimates that about 40% of the water entering the lake is stormwater runoff from hundreds of acres surrounding it.
It has been designated by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection as a rainwater reservoir for the Blackwater River, which lies below the Locklin Lake dam, Dollhausen said.
All the sediment flowing unhindered into the waterway over the years eventually filled Locklin Lake.
“We were down to one foot of water with the muck,” Dollhausen said. “It’s so deep if you step in it will suck you down to your thighs.”
He said water testing conducted a decade ago indicated the water entering the lake was “perfect,” but the muck and the vegetation that accompanied it choked the life out of what former Mayor Wes Meiss had once described as “the heart of Milton.”
Last year the city received a $500,000 appropriation from the state of Florida that with its own $500,000 match allowed for a strategy to be created to restore Locklin Lake.
Following the dredging of the lake, which is ongoing, plans call for stabilizing the shoreline around it. The city has also committed $500,000 to the dredging and shoreline stabilization work and the Locklin Lake Homeowners Association committed another $100,000.
Lastly, to protect the water body from the incessant flow of sediment, three baffle boxes that will trap the sediment as water passes through it, will be installed at strategic locations.
“It will hold the sediment and the city will come in and vacuum it out,” Spears told those gathered for the update meeting. “That will make it a lot easier to maintain the lake’s health than coming out here and doing this (dredging) every 10 years.”
Council member Larry McKee said the restoration effort is emblematic of the positive direction in which the city of Milton itself is moving.
“We’re moving in the right direction with almost every project we’ve seen,” said McKee, who was elected to the council last year alongside three other new members. “We’re moving forward in every way and in our dealings with local businesses and residents. We’re getting away from some old ways and getting out to people and saying ‘what can we do to help?’ “
