Middletown, Ohio, resident Edgar Streifthau opened LeSourdsville Lake Amusement Park on May 8, 1922. Edgar's dream was to transform the former ice manufacturing facility in the tiny village of LeSourdsville into an area for residents to enjoy a decent and clean place to picnic and swim with friends and family. Construction began on the park in 1921. Edgar and his business partner, Bill Rothfuss, built a bathhouse, a restaurant, dance hall and a bridge crossing the abandoned Miami-Erie Canal that passed through the property linking the parking lot and the park. They also constructed a concrete bottom in the man-made lake for swimming.