Did you know that: South Lake County was shown on a map in 1836 as a part of Newton County? Northern Lake County is shown as part of Porter County. Lake County became a county officially in 1837, due to legislation during the 1835-1836 session of the Indiana Legislature. The map above is copied from an original printed by Mitchell of Philadelphia, Penn., which featured the early states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan. It folds into a pocket-size book. Inside the cover a census list shows 341,582 people living in Indiana in 1836.
This map appeared in Richard Schmal's Oct. 29, 1996, "Pioneer History" column of various strange, unusual and interesting historical facts about the area..