The lake was once called Lake Swann to honor Mayor
Thomas Swann of Baltimore City, who had begun the construction of the dam at the relay house on the
Northern Central Railroad. The name Roland comes from Roland Run, which was named sometime before 1694 when Roland or Rowland Thornberry owned land in the area. In 1854, the City of Baltimore bought the holdings of the privately owned Baltimore Water Company, which had supplied water to the city for fifty years, followed between 1854 and 1857 by acquisition of the land held by the Bellona Gunpowder Mill and the Eagle Factory textile mill for $289,000. This purchase followed a political controversy regarding the failure of the water company to extend new water lines into surrounding outlying areas of the city. The city had added territory in its last annexation in 1818. The Bellona Gunpowder Mill, which had operated from at least 1801 on the west side of the lake, and the Eagle Factory, which had operated there since at least 1814, were displaced by the land purchase, while the Baltimore & Susquehanna Railroad stayed in place. The railroad was later destroyed by pro-
Confederate forces during the
American Civil War and reconstructed by pro-
Union forces as they advanced southward. In 1861, Lake Roland became the first municipal water supply for the
City of Baltimore; it was seen as an "engineering landmark" at the time. Lack of water was not the only problem the lake experienced. At times, the water was "clouded or
turbid from rain-borne particles" as dredging was attempted to make the reservoir deeper. Increased mud and silt closed the lake for hundreds of days by 1912, accompanied by costs in the thousands of dollars for upkeep. One Baltimore County newspaper in 1877 described the lake as a "receptacle of filth" from nearby industry, including the junction of the Northern Central Railroad and
Green Spring Railway, and declared that "Towsontowners never drink any water when they get into the city", even as others admired the lake as a "charming scene." Still, by 1893 some were admiring Lake Roland. One publication called it "one of our reservoirs", saying that it was "well-stocked with Black Bass and Carp" while noting that
least terns,
American black ducks,
green herons,
great blue herons,
black-crowned night herons,
semipalmated sandpipers,
buffleheads, and many other birds could be seen in the reservoir. It was around this time that the Lake Roland Elevated Railway, created in 1891, ferried commuters "from the city to Roland Park," with some going to Left Side Park, a park that was near the lake. The railway lasted until the 1950s. However, due to the problems the reservoir experienced, it was eventually abandoned for its original purpose. On November 19, 1915, due to silting problems and the creation of the much larger
Loch Raven Reservoir the prior year, the lake's use was terminated, apart from its use again on December 2 that year. The following year, some parts of the lake were sold to the
L'Hirondelle Club and the county's division of the water department was established, with the county's water engineer seeing the lake as an "emergency backup" for the city's water. In the years following, the iron bridge crossing the lake was sold for scrap. With the construction of
I-695 and the
Jones Falls Expressway and the expansion of
Towson University, silt in Lake Roland increased until it comprised 60% of its volume by 1974. Some ruins of the past railroad, mills, and reservoir use could be found in the area in the late 1970s, with unsubstantiated claims of artifacts from a camp of Chinese laborers who would have been working on the railroad. Since 1986, elevated levels of
chlordane in the flesh of the lake's fish have resulted in the issuance of a fish consumption advisory and the classification of the lake as a water-quality impaired segment. ==Geographic location==