Black Pond private airstrip

The Black Pond Airfield was evidently built at some point between 1974-93.

The airfield consisted of a single 3,300' paved runway, which was apparently constructed on filled-in land in the middle of the lake.

The airfield does not appear to be very old, as the pavement & markings appear to be relatively recent.

Why was so much effort spent to construct this runway in the middle of the lake, instead of just clearing a patch of land alongside the lake?

Ian Baren reported in 2004, "The story I heard about Black Pond was that the president of the local bank built it for his own use – there is a modern metal hanger on the northeast side. I’ve never seen any plane(s) there though."

Jeff Green reported in 2005, “The land around Black Pond, the pond, and the landing strip all belong to Dean & Wayne Ryder, owners of the Putnam National Bank.

PNB has been around since the middle of the 1800's & the family has owned this land since then.

It [the airfield] sits a few hundred feet from my home.

Frequently on Saturday mornings Wayne (or is it Dean) goes flying or his friends come to visit.

He's got a propjet of some sort, hence the length of the runway.

The runway was built by draining Black Pond then filling in the subsurface for the runway which now connects several small 'islands' that were in the pond.”