The Black Hawk Lake developed because of the town, Lake View, and the town grew because of the lake.

The last of the five glacial invasions covered the eastern half of Sac County. When the ice melted, the floodwaters settled in a basin forming what is now Black Hawk Lake, the southern most glacial lake in the United States. A natural spring-fed lake surrounded by rock boulders, this 927-acre recreational area is maintained and treasured by the community.

Settlers were in the area and a few on the south and east sides of the lake in 1867. Later it was because of a beautiful lake that two enterprising men, Platt Armstrong and James Fletcher, decided this was a good place to build a town. A railway station and a sidetrack were built with the permission of the Northwestern Railway Company. In 1880, the town was laid out and it became Fletcher. Seven years later the name changed to Lake View.

The lake progressed through four name changes from Boyer Lake to Walled Lake and from Wall Lake to presently Black Hawk Lake. Development of the lake as a resort area happened as early as 1890. Ballparks, amusement parks, hotels and cottage rentals flourished at the East End and Lakewood areas.

Lake View, home of Black Hawk Lake, is a great place with great people.  Fourth and fifth generation descendents of at least 20 pioneer families still reside in Lake View.  Now a community of 1,317 residents, Lake View people are bright, caring, friendly and proud with a median age of 45, a median income of $33,000. Twenty-five percent of our population is younger than 19 and 17 percent are 75 years and older.

Men and women growing up in Lake View have contributed to Iowa, the nation and the world. Citizens have served in the wars.  Professional people have worked in the U.S. Congress, the Library of Congress, University of Iowa College of Medicine and Arizona city and state governments. Currently, State Senator Steve Kettering is a Lake View resident. The town has produced artists, opera performers and authors.

 Lake View and Black Hawk Lake embraces more than 250,000 visitors a year. Fifty percent of the lake shoreline is public accessible. Whether you’re looking for a day’s get-away, a weekend retreat, a month’s vacation or a lifetime of great living, come to Lake View.  You’re welcome to take in a bit of our lifestyle on Black Hawk Lake.

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In the words of one of our Founders, W. H. Hart, 1914

The following was written by Platt Armstrong, one of the pioneers and founders of the town of Lake View, this county:  “In 1875 I came from Lost Nation, Clinton County, Iowa, to Sac County and bought section 13, Clinton Township.  I sent my eldest son, Alden, and Oren Haskins with teams and breaking plows, to break up the land.  They broke out about a hundred and sixty acres.  That autumn I helped the improvements along by shipping one load of lumber to Vail, it being the nearest railroad station.  My son started to haul it.  The first load he left in a slough six miles from home.  The next load he was obliged to sleep with out on the prairie eight miles from home under his wagon, it taking him four days to get the first two loads of lumber, after which he succeeded in making a load each day.  Then there was not a road or any bridges within the twenty-mile journey.

I built a house and a stable that fall, and my son got married and the following spring another one of my sons came on and helped put in a crop, which in August was destroyed by grasshoppers; the corn and oats were all gone, but some wheat was left.  That season the mosquito and green-headed horse flies were extremely thick in this part of the country and really made life a burden to both man and beast.  These pests, together with the grasshoppers, caused us to be much discouraged with our newly located home.  I then came to the conclusion that this county was not a suitable place in which to settle my sons in permanent homes, which I had intended doing for them.  Hence, I started south, home seeking, and went to Texas and rode some four hundred miles on horseback, going in west of Fort Worth, but saw nothing that enticed me to locate there.  I then returned to Clinton county and brooded over my misfortunes and unlucky selection of lands here, seeing nothing cheering ahead of me for my family.  In February, the following season, one morning I awoke and upon looking over the situation I was possessed of an inspiration, which was to rent my farm and move my family to Sac County.  By noon that day, I had my land rented and two weeks later I had moved here bag and baggage.”

“February 22, 1888, I arrived at Wall Lake again and when settled down I found that I had fourteen head of horses and four boys large enough to handle a team, so we went to tearing up the prairie sod and in 1890 we raised three thousand bushels of wheat and five thousand bushels of corn, besides oats and barley.  I then left this place and bought a quarter section of land in the west part of the present town of Lake View and commenced to plan for a railroad station, but found the Northwestern Railroad Company was prohibited from platting another town, as parties in Sac City and Wall Lake had started the first railroad and did the grading, with the understanding that there was not to be a station between these two points.  One day I meet an officer of the Northwestern road and asked him about it and he said that while this was true, that it did not prevent anyone else from platting a station and putting in a side-track.  He said if I would go ahead and build a small station house and do the grading for a short side-track, that the company would recognize it as a station.  I knew nothing about platting a town, but I took James Fletcher into my confidence.  I also found that I could get the eighty acres of land that the railroad ran through for twenty dollars per acre, but Mr. Fletcher seemed to think he wanted it all, so he purchased the land and proceeded to raise the money to build a depot building and pay for side-track grounds.  In this way Lake View had its origin, but it was known then as “Fletcher.”  November 28, 1887, it was changed to that of Lake View.”

“The same fall I built a large barn and finished off one of the stables to live in, while I was building my house.  In order to do this I had to put up some stove-pipe in length about thirty feet, and seven joints extended out beyond the building.  Being rusted together, the united joints of pipe made a very good lightning conductor, so, thinking to be on the safe side, I would make a connection with the earth, which I did by boring holes at each hind leg of the stove through the barn floor, and then placed wires around the legs and on down to the ground.  This was probably an original idea, but I never patented it!  However, it worked well, for on one occasion a bad thunder storm came up and lightning struck the stove-pipe and the seven joints outside the building were entirely ruined, but the charge went on direct to the damp earth and harmed nothing else about the place.  From this incident originated the great Dodd & Strothers lightning rod.

” In regard to the description of the lake, it should be stated that when the land was surveyed by the government, they meandered twelve hundred and eighty acres out for the water, which makes it two and a half miles in length from east to west, by about one mile in width in the widest place.  There are two islands, one having a hundred and twenty acres, while the other is but a small tract of but a few acres, generally known by hunters as “Gun-shot Hill.”  The fractional parts of forties adjoining the lake are called government lots.  Armstrong’s Second Addition is government lot No. 5; Hugo Westerman’s is lot No. 6 and Denison Beach, a part of which is now a summer resort.  Lakewood is Lot No. 7, which is the principal one, having some fifty cottages, a large hotel, a skating rink, bowling alley, a dance hall, toboggan-slide, with many pleasure boats, bath houses, etc.  This resort was started by J.H. Graves, and by him conducted a few years; he then sold the farm, the resort and grounds to Mr. Trinkel, for twenty thousand dollars and only recently he has sold it for fifty thousand dollars to A.B. Weiland and Brothers, who took possession last spring (1913) and they have since conducted it.”

“John Provost has also been selling lots and building cottages on the larger of the two islands for a number of years.  About twenty of these buildings are now occupied during the summer and autumn months.  Louis Larson, as he is known, has two gasoline boats for carrying passengers, and there are also a half dozen smaller craft, with a small sail boat line, all of which afford great pleasure to the summer visitors.”

The first settlement was made here by Robert Throssel and son in the spring of 1867.  They were followed by Joseph Parkinson, Noah Borah, William Johnston, Thomas Waddicor and George Trainer, who settled at the east and south of the lake.  In 1869 came in W.A. Robinson, locating on a farm three miles from the present town site.  The town was laid out by J.C. Fletcher in 1880 and incorporated in September of 1887.  The town was named for him, but later changed to Lake View. 

The population is about seven hundred.  The school house consists of an eight-room, well equipped structure.  The town is supplied with an excellent water works system and has a high steel tower and tank.  There are numerous large ice houses here where immense amounts of the finest lake ice in the state are stored and shipped far and near.  In the season of 1910, five hundred cars were shipped.  Much is used by the railroad company for drinking and refrigerating purposes along the extensive system.  At one time large quantities of gravel and sand were removed from the earth at this point by steam shovels and the road bed of the railroad far to the west was made first class by its use, but the holes left make an unsightly place today, in the very heart of town.             

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