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Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

We have a couple of goals for our Gazetteer:

  • That it be a tool which helps us with planning our trips.
  • We're trying to shape our Gazetteer as a tool to help us understand the community in which our ancestors lived, the community that was part of their daily lives.
  • On our trips, we try to visit those places where our ancestors left their footprints.

By learning about Lake City (and the surrounding area) during the time that our ancestors lived, we hope to have a better understanding of both their community and its relationship to their lifes. We hope that this tool helps to give us an insight into their world.

As we add data and organize our Gazetteer to help with our family research, we will be adding to this our Genealogical Helper for Lake City. While we don't have information that is specific to any given person or family, we intend to expand our understanding about where and how people lived.

Name Variations for Lake City ...

When searching records, keep in mind that names and their spelling can change over time. Our sources include documents like maps, railroad schedules, Travel, Express and Shipping Guides. Many of these documents date from the 1800's and it's common to find spelling differences.

Although we can't give a definitive list, hopefully the following will give you a feel for the variations that might occur.

  • A typical abbreviation for Lake City: Lk. City
  • In past government published Postal Guides, Lake City was referred to as Lake City Courthouse.

You might be interested in other communities that are also named Lake City. More information can be found on our Tidbits & Trivia Page for Lake City.

If you have information about these names (such as the reason for the change, date of change, the origin of the name), please Contact Us.

For more information about how community names might have been affected by the Board of Geographic Names (BGN), see our page about Placename Rules.

Neighboring Counties ...

When searching for family records, we have frequently made the mistake of not checking the neighboring counties.

For example, we have great-grandparents who lived in the southeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals and doctors were in the next county to the east. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the county to the south.

So when searching for records, we had our best success by looking in neighboring counties instead of the county in which they lived:  their home county contained property and probate records; the county to the east contained birth and death records; the county to the south contained their burial records. If we hadn't included the neighboring counties, we would have missed many valuable sources of information.

If you're in a similar situation, we hope that the following information helps.

Lake City is located in Calhoun County.

To see how the shape of Iowa's counties may have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Calhoun County: Buena Vista, Carroll, Greene, Pocahontas, Sac & Webster.

Below are the counties that are near Lake City. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Lake City:

  • Calhoun County     (The home county of Lake City)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Lake City, with the one closest to Lake City listed first.
    • Wightman
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
    • Sherwood
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
    • Yetter
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Yetter is located in Calhoun County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Yetter
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 31 people
    • Rands
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northeast)
    • Lohrville
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
    • Rockwell City
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Lytton
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
      • Lytton is located in Calhoun County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lytton
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 285 people
    • Rinard
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
      • Rinard is located in Calhoun County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rinard
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 48 people
    • Jolley
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
    • Twin Lakes
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
    • Farnhamville
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
      • Farnhamville is located in Calhoun County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Farnhamville
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 335 people
    • Somers
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northeast)
      • Somers is located in Calhoun County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Somers
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 102 people
    • Knierim
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northeast)
      • Knierim is located in Calhoun County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Knierim
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 57 people
  • Buena Vista County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Lake City, with the one closest to Lake City listed first.
    • Newell
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Newell is located in Buena Vista County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Newell
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 859 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Newell <1>
    • Juniata
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Carroll County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Lake City, with the one closest to Lake City listed first.
    • Lanesboro
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)
      • Lanesboro is located in Carroll County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lanesboro
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 108 people
    • Lidderdale
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
    • Breda
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
    • Glidden
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
    • Carroll Community Estates
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Carroll
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Ralston
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
    • Willey
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
    • Arcadia
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southwest)
      • Arcadia is located in Carroll County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Arcadia
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 531 people
    • Roselle
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southwest)
    • Halbur
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southwest)
      • Halbur is located in Carroll County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Halbur
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 252 people
    • Dedham
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the south)
    • Templeton
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
  • Crawford County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Lake City, with the one closest to Lake City listed first.
    • Westside
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southwest)
    • Boyer
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the west)
    • Vail
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
      • Vail is located in Crawford County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Vail
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 413 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Vail <1>
    • Kiron
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
  • Greene County
  • Guthrie County
  • Pocahontas County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Lake City, with the one closest to Lake City listed first.
    • Fonda
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
    • Palmer
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
    • Varina
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
  • Sac County
  • Webster County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Lake City, with the one closest to Lake City listed first.
    • Slifer
      (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
    • Gowrie
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
    • Callender
      (23 miles [37 km] to the east)
    • Barnum
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Moorland
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Lanyon
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)
    • Tara
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Harcourt
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
      • Harcourt is located in Webster County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Harcourt
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 278 people
    • Palm Grove
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
    • Clare
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northeast)
      • Clare is located in Webster County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Clare
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 133 people

For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Lake City, see our County-by-County Page for Lake City.

Cemeteries Near Lake City ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Lake City.

This is a new section and is likely to have errors. If you find an error, such as a missing cemetery or we have the wrong name, please let us know. If you know of them, we would also appreciate learning about previous or alternate names.

Although we don't have the information ourselves, if you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our list of websites on our Genealogy Helper Page for Lake City - one of the links might be able to help.

If not found below, our Cemetery List for Lake City covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Lake City, with the one closest to Lake City listed first.

Nearby Communities in 1895 ...

We've built the following list with information that came from an Atlas published by Rand McNally in 1895. The Atlas had details such as the population of the community (which appears to have come from the 1890 Census) and whether there was a post office and/or railroad service available. We also indicate if the community no longer exists and is now historic.<3>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Lake City had a population of 1,160 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Lake City had a population of 1,604 people.

These communities are listed based on their distance from Lake City, with the one closest to Lake City listed first.

We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Lake City. See our List of 1890's Communities around Lake City.

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Lake City ...

An ongoing effort between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has resulted in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

To share their results, the partnership has created the Chronicling America website. The goal of this partnership is to assemble a database about the current and historic newspapers of the United States. This includes a growing collection of scanned images from selected papers. All of it available to the public on their website.

Using information that we've taken from the Chronicling America website, we've identified 104 newspapers that have been published in the area around Lake City.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Lake City. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Lake City and those printed in the larger area surrounding Lake City.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<4> of Lake City.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first turn to the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These helpful websites offer the information directly or else point to where you can find it. Their information is open to everyone.

To help you get started, the following links will take you to the pages that are relevant to Lake City:

Footnotes ...

<1>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<2>The Find-a-Grave website is an excellent research tool with information about a cemetery's location and interments. They also offer a forum for their members which can provide additional help. More information about Find-a-Grave can be found on their website: findagrave.com.
<3>We use the term 'Historic' broadly and it generally means that the community no longer exists. However, it can also mean that the community might still exist, but was significantly larger or had a more 'official' existence in the past than it does now. Unfortunately our sources of data have proven to be unreliable. If you can provide us with more specific information about Lake City, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Lake City) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.