Lake Springfield in Illinois: Public Works and Community Design in the Mid-Twentieth Century (America Through Time)

A lake is a body of water, but it can also be the place of community. During the 1930s, a small creek in central Illinois was dammed and flooded to provide water and power to a growing nearby city. The place was already rich with history, dotted with 10,000 years of archaeological remains, crossed by a 300-year French colonial road, and the encompassing farms and small towns frequented by a young Abraham Lincoln.

The vision for Lake Springfield included much more than a source of drinking water and power for the city of Springfield. During a nationwide depression, city planners and engineers thoughtfully created a unique municipal, recreational, and residential community along the new shores. Parks, beach houses, numerous organizational clubs, scouting camps for children, a memorial garden, a nature preserve, an outdoor theater, and even a public zoo soon skirted the 4000-acre lake. Now, eighty-five years after its construction, Lake Springfield is a community with its own rich history.