Rodman Reservoir, or Lake Ocklawaha, is an artificial reservoir located on the Ocklawaha River in Putnam County and Marion County in north central Florida. The reservoir, located about 15 miles southwest of Palatka, is between State Road 19 on the east and State Road 315 on the west. [1] Before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers created the reservoir, they used a mammoth machine called the crusher-crawler to destroy sections of the forest along the Ocklawaha's wooded riverbanks. Upon closing Rodman Dam and flooding the reservoir in 1968, the crushed trees floated up to the top of the reservoir. The dam and reservoir were the first of a set of two dams and reservoirs that the Corps planned to build along the Ocklawaha River to facilitate navigation along the Cross Florida Barge Canal. However, in 1971, due to the successful efforts of environmentalist Marjorie Harris Carr and Florida Defenders of the Environment (FDE), President Richard Nixon halted construction of the canal. Carr worked until her death in 1997 to preserve and restore the Ocklawaha River. Rodman Dam was later named the George Kirkpatrick Dam to honor the Florida state senator who was one of the dam's biggest proponents.