Oconomowoc Depot

Lac La Belle is one of the largest and finest lakes at Oconomowoc. It is connected with Fowler's Lake, the most prominent feature on whose pretty shores is the grand, well-known Townsend House. All the hotels at Oconomowoc - there are quite a number, and they are all good - are located on the banks of one or the other of the lakes, and are provided with bathhouses. In addition, there are a number of first-class boarding-houses, and furnishing in all accommodations for about one thousand visitors. A beautiful drive leads to Okauchee Lake, another sheet o? water, which would be prized by the quart in many localities, although it covers sixteen hundred acres. There is much to admire in the scenery at this lake, and soon you will doubtless find a number of commodious and excellent hotels on its shores to meet the wants of tourists who come here for the excellent bass and muskallunge fishing. Numerous private residences are already erected and many more projected. This fact speaks better for this wonderful lake region of Wisconsin than volumes of argument, since expensive houses, to be used during a few months of the year only, are never built except in highly favored localities.

Passage source: The History of Waukesha County, Wisconsin. Containing an Account of Its Settlement, Growth, Development and Resources; an Extensive and Minute Sketch of Its Cities, Towns and Villages--their Improvements, Industries, Manufactories, Churches, Schools and Societies; Its War Record, Biographical Sketches, Portraits of Prominent Men and Early Settlers; the Whole Preceded by a History of Wisconsin, Statistics of the State, and an Abstract of Its Laws and Constitution and of the Constitution of the United States, published 1880.

A drive south from Oconomowoc to Dousman's artificial trout pond, some eight miles distant, reached via the ancient mounds. Silver, Otis, Duck and Genesee Lakes and several smaller ones, through a most picturesque country, will prove of special interest to every lover of the rod and line, and not less to the lover of well-prepared trout, visitors catching their own fish, which are prepared for them at the farm at moderate charge.

Passage source: The History of Waukesha County, Wisconsin. Containing an Account of Its Settlement, Growth, Development and Resources; an Extensive and Minute Sketch of Its Cities, Towns and Villages--their Improvements, Industries, Manufactories, Churches, Schools and Societies; Its War Record, Biographical Sketches, Portraits of Prominent Men and Early Settlers; the Whole Preceded by a History of Wisconsin, Statistics of the State, and an Abstract of Its Laws and Constitution and of the Constitution of the United States, published 1880.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Oconomowoc City - 43,392 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.