Vandalia Lake is a reservoir in

Fayette County, Illinois Fayette County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. As of the 2010 census, the population was 22,140. Its county seat is Vandalia, the site of the Vandalia State House State Historic Site. Ramsey Lake State Recreation Area is lo ...

. Served by

Illinois Route 185 Illinois Route 185 is an east–west state road in the south-central portion of the U.S. state of Illinois. Its western terminus is in Taylor Springs at Illinois Route 127, and the eastern terminus is at Farina at Illinois Route 37. This is ...

and by rural roads, it is 5 miles (8.0 km) northwest of the small Illinois city of Vandalia. The city, which owns the lake for flood control and water-supply purposes, reports that it is 660 acres in size and has a shoreline of 12 miles in length. The lake has a marina, boat dock, campground, and beach. Lake fishing specializes in stocked bass, including

largemouth bass The largemouth bass (''Micropterus salmoides'') is a carnivorous freshwater gamefish in the Centrarchidae ( sunfish) family, a species of black bass native to the eastern and central United States, southeastern Canada and northern Mexico, but ...

. The lake also offers

channel catfish The channel catfish (''Ictalurus punctatus'') is North America's most numerous catfish species. It is the official fish of Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Tennessee, and is informally referred to as a "channel cat". In the United States, the ...

and

bluegill The bluegill (''Lepomis macrochirus''), sometimes referred to as "bream", "brim", "sunny", or "copper nose" as is common in Texas, is a species of North American freshwater fish, native to and commonly found in streams, rivers, lakes, ponds and ...

. Much of the shore of the lake has been developed as real estate. Water from Vandalia Lake is released into Bear Creek, a tributary of the

Kaskaskia River The Kaskaskia River is a tributary of the Mississippi River, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed May 13, 2011 in central and southern Illinois in the Un ...

. The lake is located in Shafter Township and Sharon Township, with a tiny fragment of the lake extending into Bear Grove Township. At the time of

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...

's service as a pioneer state legislator in the nearby

Vandalia State House State Historic Site The Vandalia State House, built in 1836, is the fourth capitol building of the U.S. state of Illinois. It is also the oldest capitol building in Illinois to survive, as the first, second, and third capitol buildings have all disappeared. The brick ...

, a local population of

black bear Black bear or Blackbear may refer to: Animals * American black bear (''Ursus americanus''), a North American bear species * Asian black bear (''Ursus thibetanus''), an Asian bear species Music * Black Bear (band), a Canadian First Nations group ...

s inspired the name of the creek and prairie grove. The bears have since disappeared.

References

{{coord, 39.014, -89.139, type:waterbody_region:US-IL, display=title Bodies of water of Fayette County, Illinois Reservoirs in Illinois