Lake Ivanhoe is a

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...

in the Town of Bloomfield, Walworth County,

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

, United States. It was developed in the 1920s as a resort community for middle-class

Black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

Chicagoans. Its population was 461 as of the 2020 census.

History

In 1926, Jeremiah Brumfield, Frank Anglin and Bradford Watson purchased an 83-acre farm on Ryan Lake to develop a resort community for other middle-class

Chicagoans. A white real estate agent named Ivan Bell brokered the deal, and the community was named Lake Ivanhoe in his honor. In addition to private lots for cottages and summer homes, the resort included a music pavilion that opened in 1927 with a performance by

Cab Calloway Cabell "Cab" Calloway III (December 25, 1907 – November 18, 1994) was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was a regular performer at the Cotton Club in Harlem, where he became a popular vocalist of the Swing music, swing era. His niche ...

. The resort also hosted fishing contests, beauty pageants, and boxing matches. Lake Ivanhoe was successful until 1929, when property sales declined during the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

. In 1934,

Chicago Bears The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. They are one of two remaining ...

player Edward Sternaman began purchasing unsold property at Lake Ivanhoe with the intention of turning the community into a white resort. He built fences to restrict Black residents' beach and lakefront access, but when the residents filed a civil suit, a judge ruled that the lake was a

public good In economics, a public good (also referred to as a social good or collective good)Oakland, W. H. (1987). Theory of public goods. In Handbook of public economics (Vol. 2, pp. 485–535). Elsevier. is a commodity, product or service that is bo ...

, and Sternaman abandoned his plans and left the area. Black families continued to move to the area after World War II, making it a year-round community by the 1970s. A government housing program in the 1990s brought new white and Latino families to Lake Ivanhoe, changing the demographics such that African-Americans only made up 9 percent of the community's population at the 2020 census.

Demographics

References

{{authority control Census-designated places in Walworth County, Wisconsin Census-designated places in Wisconsin Populated places in Wisconsin established by African Americans

History

Demographics

See also

References