Sitting almost 1,400 feet/430 meters above sea level in the Poconos Mountains is this jewel of a 44-acre lake called Sunfish Pond. No roads lead there: you have to hike in to see it. A glacial lake, formed as the last Ice Age was ending, Sunfish Pond is a tranquil and lovely element of the Worthington State Forest – an area adjacent to the Delaware Water Gap that straddles Pennsylvania and New Jersey. And it almost didn’t make it.
The American aristocrat Charles Worthington had used Sunfish Pond as a water supply for his hunting mansion on the property, but by the 1960s Sunfish Pond had been purchased by power companies who wanted to bulldoze it and turn it into a reservoir. A local nature-lover Casey Kayes, who worked as a custodian in the area, rallied like-minded folks to protest the destruction and led a hike of 655 people to the lake in support of its preservation. (Having hiked to Sunfish Pond myself I can assure you that organizing this was no small feat.).
Amazingly, Casey and his fellows were victorious, and the power companies donated the land to the state in 1965. In 1970, as you can read from the plaque on the second image, Sunfish Pond became a registered National Landmark, allowing its beauty to be enjoyed for generations to come.
Source(s): Information from Wikipedia.
