American Lake Park — Attraction in Lakewood

Has always been a quaint and beautiful park, but nowadays... its turning ghetto. A "cultural" transition... now there are punks running around with foul mouths, throwing rocks into the lake with swimmers, and harassing every woman in a bikini there. I've seen decent people pull up, make it as far as hearing all the vulgarities and obscene language from those types, turn around get back in their cars. This activity goes on unabated. One day saw the lifeguard on duty competing to see who could throw the rocks furthest while swimmers were in the water (there's no rock throwing at the beach). Those ghetto kids are screaming vulgarities and constant use of the N word to each other.. it seems they just blurt that foul language out to get attention.. saying to good samaritans "hey I want to F you wife", "suck D", "Bi*ch" and on and on... the lifeguard does nothing, but acts friendly with them.. .maybe a politically correct thing... but I don't care who it is, that behavior should not be tolerated and makes the park no fun to attend; as mention, witnessed respectable people show up and turn around and leave when they saw that posse there acting the way they were with their rap music blaring and screaming...

Nice little (emphasize "LITTLE") public park located on the west side of American Lake, including boat access and a public swimming area (no lifeguards). Always busy when the weather is nice, but usually a friendly, safe environment. There are 2 covered areas, (one of them attached to the bathroom facility, i.e. lots of foot traffic) and plenty of places to lay down a blanket or set up an awning. The entire park is on a gentle, SE facing slope with lots of sun in afternoons. It has a concrete path going all the way down from the parking lot, to where the sand begins. The beach area makes up about a third of the entire park (not including boat ramp and parking) and has small dock that you can swim out to. The rest of the park is covered with beautiful, old growth evergreens, providing lots of shade and cooler temps when it's hot out. This is a nice park, just know beforehand that you'll probably be "cozy" with your neighbor when it's busy. Although the park is small, the parking area is abundant and free. Not really a "destination park" (in my opinion), but nice park none the less and worth...

The sign instructs you to use the "overflow" lot if you don'thave a boat trailer, which they blocked off.

The only parking available is for boat trailers. Even though there are many parking spots, it says you will be towed if you do not have e a boat trailer.

They even blocked the handicapped boat trailer parking spot.

We stopped to walk our dogs along the road in front of the park before going to the VA clinic. To do so, we had to park in a boat trailer spot. It was a slow day at the launch so we were 200+ yards from the nearest boat trailer.

The workers had a picnic table, presumably for lunch and breaks. The garbage was full, so they simply threw their garbage on the ground. There was a very large dumpster about 50 feet away, which they probably walked near to go back to work.

The sign that they printed have the the word "trailer" spelled wrong. Further proof of pride in...