The Carroll County commissioners took ownership of the Atwood Lake Resort and Conference Center last week. The Muskingum (muss-king-gum) Watershed Conservancy District donated the property after a year of debate about what to do with the closed hotel, golf course and restaurant.

Commissioner Doyle Hawk says he hopes to have the nearly 50-year-old lodge reopened by May 1^st and thinks a perfect group of prospective lodgers.

“We have a lot of oil and gas people that are hunting places to stay. A lot of these people live quite a ways — from out of state. They’ll be going back and forth to work. We’ll also have different vendors coming in. And I feel sure it’ll be booked up … as soon as it becomes available.”

Hawk says Carroll County also will lease the 500 acres surrounding the lodge for shale drilling, and will use the revenue from that lease to upgrade the lodge—including wireless internet access. He says he isn’t worried about the possible environmental damage.

“I feel very secure about the drilling and what they’re doing. I know we had a meeting with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. They got a lot more inspectors on site to keep tabs on everything that’s going on.”

The lodge closed in 2010 after running a one million dollar deficit  during 2009 and 2010 each. The conservancy wanted to demolish the lodge because it couldn’t afford maintenance or meet customer requests for improvements.

But, county commissioners fought to keep the lodge.