Shenandoah Acres was a resort in Stuarts Draft, Virginia

Stuarts Draft, Virginia

Stuarts Draft is a census-designated place in Augusta County, Virginia, United States. The population was 8,367 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Staunton–Waynesboro Micropolitan Statistical Area....

 that billed itself as "America's Finest Inland Beach." The Acres closed in 2004 and was subsequently purchased by Goodfaith LLC.

The most visible aspect of Shenandoah Acres was its small, spring-fed lake that was unique for its use of playground equipment in the water. Shenandoah Acres also featured 250 camp sites, 35 cabins, horseback riding, miniature golf, and tennis courts.

The campground reopened in 2009 and operated as Mountain Spring Resort. In 2011, it reverted to the Shenandoah Acres name under new management. Along with other renovations, the current operator plans to clean the lake in order to reopen in spring 2012.

History

Originally, Shenandoah Acres was a farm consisting of orchards, and a cranberry

Cranberry

Cranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines in the subgenus Oxycoccus of the genus Vaccinium. In some methods of classification, Oxycoccus is regarded as a genus in its own right...

 bog

Bog

A bog, quagmire or mire is a wetland that accumulates acidic peat, a deposit of dead plant material—often mosses or, in Arctic climates, lichens....

 encircling a small pond. The cranberry bog was well known by botanists as a location for several rare plants and orchids including the rose pogonia

Pogonia

Pogonia is a genus of orchids belonging to the subfamily Vanilloideae. It includes 7 species, and takes its name from the Greek pōgōn and pōgōníās, meaning, respectively, 'beard' and 'bearded.'...

 and grass pink

Grass pink

Grass pinks are a group of terrestrial orchids . The generic name is from Greek and means "beautiful beard", referring to the cluster of hairs adorning the labellum. The genus is mainly confined to the United States, with 5 species found in the southeastern U.S., but only one north into Wisconsin...

 orchids. In the journal Claytonia, the botanist Lloyd Carr described the pond as a sea of pink when the orchids were in bloom. The cranberry bog was one of a series of sinkhole ponds and wetlands in the Maple Flats area; perhaps the only one remaining with a similar flora is Spring Pond. After the bog was destroyed to create Shenandoah Acres, many of the rare species once found there became locally extinct

Local extinction

Local extinction, also known as extirpation, is the condition of a species which ceases to exist in the chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere...

.

Dr. William Dodge charged visitors ten cents to swim and picnic on his property in 1930s. The property was purchased by the Blacka family in 1935.

Further reading

• No More Swimming WHSV-TV
• Draft resort shuttered for summer The News Leader