Katie Green, 48, a white woman, grew up in nearby Lake Geneva attending Lake Geneva schools with Black students from Lake Ivanhoe. Today, 2% of Badger High School students are Black.

The Lake Ivanhoe community was envisioned a century ago as the first Black-founded settlement in Wisconsin. A group of residents is working to erect a marker to make sure this history is noted.

Finally, a white real estate agent Ivan Bell sold them the three-acre property, and the men decided to found their own “Black Lake Geneva.” “So in 1926, they built this huge pavilion, it was ...

Wisconsin is home to many lakes, but none share the same history as Lake Ivanhoe. The rich past of the […] The post Wisconsin’s first Black-owned resort property receives historic marker ...

Lake Ivanhoe had been founded in 1926 by Chicago Black men who wanted a safe place to vacation amid segregation and sundown towns — white communities where Black people were not welcome after dark.