Nelson Lake is a reservoir in

Sawyer County, Wisconsin Sawyer County is a county in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census, the population was 18,074. Its county seat is Hayward. The county partly overlaps with the reservation of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa ...

formed by a dam across the

Totagatic River The Totagatic River (generally pronounced ''To-TA-ga-tik'') is an U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 5, 2012 tributary of the Namekagon River in northwestern Wisconsin ...

.Fishery Management Plan for Nelson Lake, Sawyer County, Wisconsin
/ref> On January 9, 1934, a resolution was brought before the Sawyer County Board by Frank O. Nelson, a board member and a proponent for conservation, to "build a dam across the Totogatic River to create a large flowage or lake from the backwater, suitable for fish and which would furnish a refuge and breeding grounds for all kinds of wildlife." This was to be done with

Civil Works Administration The Civil Works Administration (CWA) was a short-lived job creation program established by the New Deal during the Great Depression in the United States to rapidly create mostly manual-labor jobs for millions of unemployed workers. The jobs were ...

funds but this program ended in confusion. The

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

followed and made a survey for this project. By October 1935, forty men from the Federal Transient Camp at Hayward were working at the dam. Mr. Nelson died on November 15, 1935, before he could see the dam completed. After his death the County Board passed a resolution naming the flowage being formed at the big bend of the Totogatic, "Nelson Lake," in his memory, stating that: "this project was primarily proposed and started through the untiring efforts of the late F.O. Nelson."

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* Lakes of Sawyer County, Wisconsin Lakes of Wisconsin Works Progress Administration in Wisconsin {{SawyerCountyWI-geo-stub