Laketown is an unincorporated community in
Woodside Township, Sangamon County, Illinois, entirely surrounded by the city of
Springfield. It is made up of three
subdivisions
Subdivision may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Subdivision (metre), in music
* ''Subdivision'' (film), 2009
* "Subdivision", an episode of ''Prison Break'' (season 2)
* ''Subdivisions'' (EP), by Sinch, 2005
* "Subdivisions" (song), by Rus ...
: Southlawn, Lake Springfield Estates, and Circle Drive.
There are approximately 970 homes in Laketown, as well as various small businesses.
Laketown takes its name from nearby
Lake Springfield
Lake Springfield is a reservoir in the southeast of the capital city of Springfield, Illinois. It is above sea level. The lake was formed by building Spaulding Dam across Sugar Creek, a tributary of the Sangamon River. It is the largest munic ...
but does not directly adjoin the lake. The community's boundaries are defined by Stevenson Drive on the north, West Lake Shore Drive on the east, the
Canadian National
The Canadian National Railway Company () is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States.
CN is Canada's largest railway, in terms of both revenue an ...
(formerly
Illinois Central Gulf Railroad
The Illinois Central Railroad , sometimes called the Main Line of Mid-America, is a railroad in the Central United States. Its primary routes connected Chicago, Illinois, with New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama, and thus, ...
) tracks on the west, and either Circle Drive
or
Interstate 55
Interstate 55 (I-55) is a major Interstate Highway in the central United States. As with most primary Interstates that end in a five, it is a major cross-country, north–south route, connecting the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes. The ...
on the south.
Although outside the city limits, Laketown has long received various services from entities associated with the city, such as
Springfield School District 186
Springfield School District No. 186, known as Springfield Public Schools (SPS), is a unit school district in Sangamon County, Illinois. Its territory includes most of the city of Springfield, Illinois, its four inner suburbs of Grandview, Illi ...
and the
Springfield Park District. In 2022, the District 186 board announced plans to consolidate Laketown Elementary School with two nearby elementary schools at a new location on Springfield's south side.
History
The subdivisions making up Laketown were built in the late 1940s.
The name "Laketown" was adopted by the Laketown Improvement Association (formerly the Southlawn Improvement Association) in 1955.
In the 1950s, the Laketown Improvement Association sponsored various community festivals and briefly operated a civic center in the neighborhood.
During this period, the city of Springfield made a first unsuccessful effort to annex Laketown.
In 1957, Laketown Elementary School was built on the former site of the Laketown civic center.
Laketown was annexed into Springfield on August 11, 1986 by a newly-passed state law. Known as the "hole in the doughnut" law, the statute caused unincorporated areas fully surrounded by cities with
coterminous townships to be automatically annexed into those cities.
When the annexation became public in February 1987, an intense campaign led by the Laketown Association led the Springfield city council to exercise its
home rule
Home rule is the government of a colony, dependent country, or region by its own citizens. It is thus the power of a part (administrative division) of a state or an external dependent country to exercise such of the state's powers of governan ...
powers to reverse the annexation on March 11, 1987.
The
deannexation was retroactive to August 11, so that the legal effect was as if Laketown had never been annexed.
Springfield was the only one of the 22 cities affected by the law to take such an action.
Mayor Ossie Langfelder made a renewed attempt to annex Laketown in 1988 but this was also unsuccessful.
References
External links
Laketown Neighborhood Association
{{Sangamon County, Illinois
Springfield metropolitan area, Illinois
Unincorporated communities in Sangamon County, Illinois
Unincorporated communities in Illinois