Lac La Belle, WI

Lac La Belle is a tiny village in Wisconsin's Lake Country, wrapped around the lake that gives it a name and connected to the Oconomowoc area by local roads. The 2020 census counted 281 residents. It began as a community of vacation homes for people from larger Midwestern cities and incorporated in 1931, when only 66 people lived there. That origin still shows in the village's shape: shoreline homes, wooded stretches, and a municipal center at the meeting of Highways P and K, with Oconomowoc handling many of the larger nearby errands.

The lake's old resort culture left behind a remarkably serious golf tradition. La Belle Golf Club opened in 1896 and drew prominent players to the summer communities around Oconomowoc; the course is now part of the Club at Lac La Belle. Camp Olin-Sang-Ruby Union Institute adds another long-running seasonal institution along the water. The village's land-use plans pay close attention to wetlands, the shoreline, the Oconomowoc River, and groundwater, which is exactly the practical work a lake community has to keep doing. Lac La Belle is small, but its map is full of summer homes, a historic course, a camp, and water connecting it to the rest of Lake Country.