Little Old Lake Five through old photos
This "Little Old Lake Five" series of Retrospect will be illustrated with postcards from about 100 years ago, plus a 60- and a 30-year-old set of pictures.
Lake Five is on the border of the Town of Lisbon in Waukesha County and Washington County. An important part of this lake is skirted by Highway Q/County Line Road as it goes west from the new state-of-the-art roundabout that goes north-south on the nearby Highway 164, and east-west on Highway Q. It is not complete, but already it seems to have solved a problem that bedeviled users last year when at times there would be half-mile backups at rush hour.
Meanwhile, this roundabout seems to be a cure for the horrendous accidents that have periodically occurred at this intersection. There might still be accidents with the roundabout, but they will likely be fender benders, usually noninjury accidents.
The postcards illustrating this four-part series come from the archives of the Sussex Lisbon Area Historical Society research section of the museum.
The name "Lake Five" goes back to the 19th century when people talked of "sections," half-sections and quarter-sections. A section is one square mile. The settlers and later farmers knew that a section had 640 acres, a half-section was 320 acres and a quarter-section was 160 acres.
The Town of Lisbon originally had 36 sections, or 36 square miles of land. These sections were numbered 1 through 36. It was the habit of settlers and early farm owners to name things after the section number. Thus the lake, at the north top border of section 5, is called Lake Five.
Similarly, Lisbon had both a one-room public school and a church that was on Section 16, with the school known as "Sixteen School" and the church as "Sixteen Church" (Lisbon Presbyterian). Meanwhile, Hillside Road became known in early times as "Sixteen Road" as it went by Section 16.
Little Old Lake Five through old photos, Part 2
The Town of Lisbon was shortchanged by the glaciers, as there are no lakes left in the original 36 square miles of the territory. The lone exception is the southern shoreline of Lake Five; the vast majority of Lake Five is in Washington County.
Lisbon does have a man-made water impoundment, the Bark River Dam site, which again, Lisbon shares with another community and the Village of Merton. Lisbon is considered part of Lake Country, even though it has no lakes and is also short of good waterways and rivers. Three rivers start in Lisbon: the Bark River, the Menomonee River and the lower Fox River. The Bark River is the biggest waterway in Lisbon. It starts just south and east of Lake Five, with a prominent crossing of Highway 164 south of Hickory Road.
When the pioneers came in 1836-37, John Andrews and Lymon Hamilton Grover were the original Lisbon Lake Five shore owners, paying $1.25 per acre for their homestead purchase of 160 acres ($200 total). However, they did not retain these land masses on the southern shore of Lake Five for very long.
The early settlers of Lisbon were attracted to the Lake Five area by the level land available. Most of these early immigrants were from either England or Ireland, and proximity to the lake was a chance to vary their diet with fish, plus the geese and ducks that were about. However, it was farming that was going to be their living and wealth generator. They chopped down the oak forest and made log cabins, then used the cleared land to plant subsistent first acres, and later went into true farming and animal husbandry.
Lake Five acquired a blacksmith shop, and for the Irish Catholics, a church at the corner of present day Highways 164 and Q, named St. Columbia's. It appeared on the map in the early 1850s.
The next thing built was a school house for the area. It had to cover a big enough area to serve enough children who needed schooling, plus the tax base to support a "free school."
The school which resulted was Lisbon No.3 School, a log cabin building organized in 1843. The initial class ranged from ages 4 to 20. The school was in the area of the present-day roundabout, but soon a replacement school was built down on Hickory Road. Today it is gone without a trace. It was exactly three-fourths of a mile west of Highway 164 and again exactly three-fourths of a mile east of Lake Five Road, on the south side of Hickory Road.
In 1890 it was rebuilt on the same site. In 1961 a second room was added, and in the fall of 1970 it was incorporated into the Merton School District, which closed it down. In March 1973, just days before it would be sold at auction, the now three-room structure was destroyed by a fire. Arson was suspected.
Little Old Lake Five through old photos, Part 3
A village of sorts grew up around the southern shore of Lake Five and the adjacent County Line Road, half of the community and village was in Waukesha County, while the majority of the lake surface was in Washington County.
The first settlers came to the area in the late 1830s, and by 1855 the community had grown, having a blacksmith shop, a church and a cemetery. A U.S. Post Office was established, and Patrick McGovern was appointed postmaster on May 28, 1855. The office was discontinued on Oct. 13, 1860. However, a month later, on Nov. 13, 1860, Patrick McGovern was again appointed postmaster.
This post office was south of County Line Road in Lisbon. Six years later, the post office moved from the Town of Lisbon to Washington County's side of County Line Road. On Feb. 14, 1866, Michael Higgins was the new postmaster. The Lake Five post office lasted until the office was discontinued on March 28, 1895. The mail was then sent to the Colgate post office. Then it was re-established at Lake Five on Jan. 13, 1896, with Patrick McCartan as the postmaster. The Lake Five post office was finally discontinued for good on Jan. 14, 1904, and the mail was sent to Menomonee Falls.
Plat maps of 1857 showed that the Calkins family became major land owners on the southern shores of Lake Five. The 1873 map showed B. Driscoll and F. Staus, along with the extended Calkins family as the big land owners. In 1893, G. Bourman owned a critical 38 acres that started on Hickory Road and extended a half mile north to the central lake shore while Fred Staus and the James Driscoll families controlled about 285 acres.
The 1902-era map showed B. Reilly and J. Reilly owning a combined 178 acres, J. Seidl with the 33 center acres and M. Staus with his 149 acres.
The map in 1914 showed that the Staus family had given way to the ownership of Jacob Schlafer with the extended Staus family immediately west of the Schlafer farm and west of Plat Road. There was some land development of small lots on the lake, but the Seidl and Reilly families were still entrenched where the Sennott family took over along with W. Dunn.
Meanwhile, the Pfister Vogel Tanning Company, a leather company, acquired some large Washington County land holdings on the north side of the lake.
Today many of the old cottages are being either torn down and replaced or substantially remodeled.
Patriotism has not been wanting in Lake Five as Mike Dunn and James Sennott served in the Spanish American War and reportedly knew Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders. Francis Sennott, son of James, served in World War I.
Little Old Lake Five through old photos, Part 4
The general rule of thumb is anything north of the straight line Highway Q is Washington County and anything south is the Town of Lisbon, but there is an exception, as the roadway loops south for a while and then back north as the waters of Lake Five gently push into Waukesha County. The cornerstones of this loop are two lake roads to the north called East Lake Lane and West Lake Lane, both in Washington County.
In 2009, the eastern landmark is the new, partly occupied County Line Plaza, which includes the Skin Tight Med Spa & Salon, the Snap Fitness center and the Westbury Bank, near the Lake Five roundabout.
The remnants of the now abandoned St. Columba's Catholic Church property are on the north side of the roundabout, and have been sold to business interests. Across and west of Highway 164 is the St. Columba Cemetery. The church and cemetery go back to the 1850s, and now the church's congregation is part of St. Gabriel's in Richfield.
The former F&M Lake Five Bank is on the south side, but it has been an Associated Bank affiliate since the 1990s. A little further west is the Lake Five Mobil service station, which includes a mini market. A long block west is the tavern, usually called the Lake Five Tavern, but currently named Uncle Johnny's Bar and Grill. The old Lake Five Boat Livery is on the shore as the lake appears.
A saw sharpening service is advertised at the former Little Store run by Lois and Mel Fast, which started around 1973 and closed when the couple retired. The Lake Five Emu Farm is a prominent farm on the south side of the road. You know you're at the western end of Lake Five when you hit the Robert Straus and Family farm, house and barns at the intersection of Highway Q and Plat Road.
Plat Road is one of Wisconsin's scenic road gems. One must take this road at least once each way during the four seasons to appreciate it. Only a little ways north is the ghost town of Plat, with only an active grade school going.