The beginning of Medelmans Lake goes back to 1945. Frank Medelman, along with his son, Henry, and their partner, Leo Sokol, drilled the property successfully to find gravel. They started dredging just off of highway 81, along the Northern part of what is the lake today. The company known as Elkhorn Construction Co. was formed and the gravel pit began working from a small, two-room office.
Frank’s son Henry took over the majority of shares in the company when Frank passed away in 1956. Henry built up his career as a bridge builder, but continued to work with Frank’s partner on the dredging operation.
In the late 1950’s, individuals, who would later become known as the Norfolk Aquanuts, approached Henry and asked if they could put their boats on the lake to try and ski. From that day on, the lake was never the same. Today, many families enjoy the benefits of all the dredging over the last 70 years: birthday parties, weddings, sunbathing, skiing, and maybe a few beers thrown in for good measure.
From 1946 until 1960, the dredging operation discharged sand into the Elkhorn River. After the flood of 1960, Elkhorn Construction was sued by the Dryer family for causing their farm to flood due to the sand discharge’s impact. The city of Norfolk also asked Elkhorn Construction to quit discharging sand because it interrupted the city’s sewage discharge into the river near Andy’s Lake.
Under Henry’s leadership, Elkhorn Construction continued to grow and expand its operation with pits located in Norfolk, Battle Creek, Meadow Grove, and Stanton. Elkhorn Construction built many of the county bridges in Madison County and surrounding counties. In 1965, at the young age of 42, Henry passed away from a heart attack, and his shares passed to his wife, Helen. Helen eventually acquired all shares in the company and continued to work, dredging gravel and constructing bridges.
In the late 1960’s, her brother, Don Kellogg, and his business partner, Harry Nuremburg, started Midwest Bridge and Construction. At that time, Elkhorn Construction struck a deal to work with Midwest Bridge to continue its dredging operations.
Between the years of 1986 and 2016, Helen’s son, Paul Medelman, began acquiring property to enable the company to expand and grow. The pieces acquired are today known as Medelmans Lake. The first piece of land was 80 acres owned by Victor Ganskow, and extended from Sherwood Road to the north. The second, was 118 acres purchased from the Art Dryer family, and extended from the Elkhorn River, south to Sherwood Road. The third and last piece, was Riviera Raceway, owned by the Bob Haase family. The Riviera Raceway reached its 50th Anniversary entertaining Northeast Nebraskans every Saturday night by showcasing stock car races. At the end of their 50th season, Lyman-Richey started dredging the racetrack.
In 1987, Elkhorn Construction leased its lakes to Northeast Sand and Gravel until the early 90’s. Then, Medelmans Lake was leased to Lyman-Richey who continued to dredge for gravel until the fall of 2016.
Married in 1948 to Henry Medelman, Helen remembers skiing on the lake at the age of 21. There were no docks at the time from which to start skiing. Instead, skiiers started at the sandy banks near the edge of the water, and either had a successful launch or landed head first into the water.
As the years went by, Henry and Helen had 7 children, who they often brought to the lake after work and on weekends, even if the children were small enough to be in basinets. Helen remembers taking the kids fishing one Memorial Weekend and while she rested under a shade tree on the bank, the boys caught so many bass that they couldn’t keep up with worming hooks. She remembers watching the children spend countless Sunday afternoons playing in sand piles.
On the 4th of July, Henry shot fireworks by throwing a few sticks of dynamite in the lake, and the fishing was always better right after.
