Bellevue's (Ohio) Sinkholes

Bellevue, Ohio

 

The City of Bellevue, a large part of Thompson Township in Seneca County, most of York Township of Sandusky County and the south-west part of Groton Township in Erie County have no other drainage than sinkholes. The whole district has an underlying strata of carboniferous limestone. Seneca Caverns in Thompson Township have been a show place for years. Some of the sinkholes are natural, others artificial, being constructed by drilling and testing until a crevice or fracture capable of taking a sufficient quantity of water to be useful is found. 

Some of the sinkholes are connected underground. Tests have been made to determine whether the Kinney sinks have any connection with the underground river emerging from the Blue Hole at Castalia which tended to prove they did not. Sinkholes in the lower areas have been known to spout water during flood times, which could only have been caused by pressure through connected fractures from higher land. The lowest land not provided with surface drainage in Groton and York townships was the last to drain. Water from the June flood laid in certain low areas until October. If the water from the region south of Bellevue can be taken care of by surface drainage facilities much of the trouble existing in the low lying sinkholes area around Bellevue will be eliminated.

[Excerpted from a report by Myron T. Jones, engineer and attorney, published in the Bellevue Gazette, April 1, 1938.]

This article about Bellevue's Sinkholes appeared on the Sandusky County Scrapbook website which no longer exists.  The site was a local history cooperative effort of the Sandusky County (Ohio) Libraries.