Lake Boren is located just south of downtown

Newcastle, Washington Newcastle is an Eastside (King County, Washington), Eastside city in King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington, United States. The population was 13,017 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. Although Newcastl ...

. Lake Boren Park is located on its southwestern shore.

History

Lake Boren, once named Etta Cartney Lake, was once much larger and deeper than it is now, with a depth of in 1883. It is fed by China Creek, which originates on

Cougar Mountain Cougar Mountain is a peak in the Issaquah Alps in King County, Washington. It is part of the highlands in the Eastside suburbs of Seattle, and at it is the lowest and westernmost of the Alps. About two-thirds of Cougar Mountain has experienc ...

. The creek was named for Chinese coal miners, who had racial confrontations with white miners. The lake overflowed onto a

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river. Floodplains stretch from the banks of a river channel to the base of the enclosing valley, and experience flooding during periods of high Discharge (hydrolog ...

during the winter, which was used for grazing livestock during the summer. Before 1950, the lake had

salmon Salmon (; : salmon) are any of several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the genera ''Salmo'' and ''Oncorhynchus'' of the family (biology), family Salmonidae, native ...

runs that migrated from

Lake Washington Lake Washington () is a large freshwater lake adjacent to the city of Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the largest lake in King County, Washington, King County and the second largest natural lake in the state of Washington (state), Was ...

. Sediment from China Creek reduced the depth of the lake to . The creek was channelized in the 1960s, stopping flooding and allowing for development near the lake. A

culvert A culvert is a structure that channels water past an obstacle or to a subterranean waterway. Typically embedded so as to be surrounded by soil, a culvert may be made from a pipe (fluid conveyance), pipe, reinforced concrete or other materia ...

mostly stopped salmon migration in the 1950s.

Description

Lake Boren Park has many amenities, including a fishing dock,

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

courts, a

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

court, a

sand volleyball Beach volleyball is a team sport played by two teams of two to four players each on a sand court divided by a net. Similar to indoor volleyball, the objective of the game is to send the ball over the net and to ground it on the opponent's side o ...

court, a play area and picnic shelters. It is home to community events, such as concerts,

Fourth of July Independence Day, known colloquially as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States which commemorates the ratification of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, establishing th ...

fireworks, and Newcastle Days. There are many hiking trails near Lake Boren. The Waterline trail travels just to the west of Lake Boren Park, connecting it to the May Creek Trail and downtown Newcastle. The CrossTown trail runs east from Lake Boren Park, connecting to the large trail network of

Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park is a regional park in King County, Washington, near the towns of Bellevue, Washington, Bellevue and Issaquah, Washington, Issaquah. The park was established in June 1983 to protect the central core of Couga ...

The lake is popular for fishing. It has been stocked with

rainbow trout The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributary, tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in North America and Asia. The steelhead (sometimes called steelhead trout) is an Fish migration#Classification, ...

by the

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) is a department of the government of the state of Washington, United States of America. The WDFW manages over a million acres of land, the bulk of which is generally open to the public, an ...

since the salmon run was cut off. Other fish species in the lake include

brown bullhead The brown bullhead (''Ameiurus nebulosus'') is a fish of the family Ictaluridae that is widely distributed in North America. It is a species of bullhead catfish and is similar to the black bullhead (''Ameiurus melas'') and yellow bullhead (' ...

coastal cutthroat trout The coastal cutthroat trout (''Oncorhynchus clarkii'', sometimes referred as ''Oncorhynchus clarkii clarkii''), also known as the sea-run cutthroat trout, blue-back trout or harvest trout, is one of the four speciesTrotter, Patrick; Bisson, Pete ...

largemouth bass The largemouth bass (''Micropterus nigricans'') is a carnivorous, freshwater fish, freshwater, ray-finned fish in the Centrarchidae (sunfish) family, native to the eastern United States, eastern and central United States, southeastern Canada an ...

, and

yellow perch The yellow perch (''Perca flavescens''), commonly referred to as perch, striped perch, American perch or preacher is a freshwater perciform fish native to much of North America. The yellow perch was described in 1814 by Samuel Latham Mitchill fr ...

. Lake Boren has of watershed area. It is a mesotrophic lake.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Boren Lakes of King County, Washington Lakes of Washington (state)