Lower Lake, CA

Lower Lake is a southern Clear Lake community with a name that sounds simple but a history that is not. Isaac Edmund Mitchell founded it as Grantville in 1858; after Lake County split from Napa, Lower Lake briefly held the county seat when the Lakeport courthouse burned in 1867. Lakeport got the seat back in 1871, leaving Lower Lake with the better local argument and the older schoolhouse stories. The Koi Nation’s Lower Lake Rancheria is part of the area’s Indigenous history, and the restored two-room schoolhouse now serves as a museum. Lower Lake is Lake County with Anderson Marsh nearby, a contested courthouse past, and one very good brick building.