A small Wisconsin town is honored as the state's first Black-founded
LAKE IVANHOE ,Wis. -- Peter Baker says he will never forget his first visit to Lake Ivanhoe. It was 1966. He was 9 years old and his friend brought him up from Chicago on a fishing trip. They caught dozens of fish, mostly bluegills and crappies.
"We went home and I ran in the house with all these fish and I showed my mother, 'We were up there at Lake Ivanhoe, and it was all Black!' " said Baker, now 66. "And the first thing she said is, to my father, 'Ernest, we're going up there next week.' "
The tiny subdivision of Lake Ivanhoe is nestled beside a quiet lake, just six miles east of Lake Geneva. The Bakers bought a house on Tuskegee Drive and moved the family up from Chicago. Peter spent his days fishing, swimming and running through the woods., where African Americans were not welcome after dark, Baker said Lake Ivanhoe was a refuge.
