Okoboji: How the lakes came to be, how they were named, how they compare, destroying a legend
No one has kept count, but it is a fair guess that millions of people have visited the Okoboji area since the era of non-native residency began in the mid-1800s.
One of the questions most often heard from first-time visitors goes something like this: “How did this happen?” Or, elaborating a bit on the language,” How did such wonderful recreational lakes like this come to be in the midst of what otherwise is the mostly flat lands of Northwest Iowa?”
The easy answer is that they are just an extension of the 11,000 lakes in nearby Minnesota. The more specific answer is much longer and more complex. What follows is a short and simplified version compiled from several books and articles.
The Okoboji story begins 18,000 years ago with the waning of the last ice age. To understand what happened, however, we need to look back over the past 2.5 million years as the climate fluctuated from warm to cold and back in response to changes in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun and the tilt of its axis.
The colder periods brought expansion of the glaciers, which covered large areas of land in the Northern Hemisphere of North America, including all of Canada and much of the north-central United States.
In Iowa, the glaciers reached as far south as Des Moines. As the retreat of the glaciers progressed, they left behind some of the richest farmland in the world as well as thousands of lakes stretching northward from Dickinson County in the northwest corner of Iowa into 83 of the 87 counties of Minnesota.
The ice had been thousands of feet deep. The melting began at the south end of the glaciers and moved to the north. It took thousands of years, and it was uneven, causing the glaciers to alternatively retreat and then advance – two steps to the north, one step back to the south – with sideways motion mixed in for good measure.
As they moved, they carved huge holes in the earth. They also left enormous blocks of ice stranded on the landscape. As the ice melted, the water filled the holes, and lakes were formed.
The moving glaciers also carved deep valleys where they deposited large quantities of pebbles, earth, and boulders, a mixture known as moraine. The moraine could form dams, which then proceeded to trap water and create more lakes, according to the National Geographic Resource Library. It was this latter phenomenon that created most of the Minnesota lakes as well as the Iowa Great Lakes, which were formed by moraine left in the northwest and southeast corners of what is now Dickinson County.
The naming of the lakes
Spirit Lake – The Indians called this lake Minnie Waukon, meaning the spirit water – perhaps a reference to the belief among some of the Indians that the lake was under the guardian watch of an evil spirit. Early French settlers made it Lac d’ Esprit, which translated to the name that stuck: Spirit Lake.
West Lake -- The Sioux Indians called it Minnietonka, which means Great Waters. But a popular Minnesota lake near Minneapolis had the same name, though spelled slightly differently: Minnetonka. There also was an effort to name the lake for Dr. I. H. Harriot, who was killed by the Indians in the Spirit Lake Massacre in 1857. To be continued below.
East Okoboji – The Indians called this lake Okoboozhy, which has been variously translated as “reeds and rushes” in recognition of the growth that once surrounded the lake, as “and there are others,” and, perhaps most appropriately, as “place of rest.” In the early years of settlement, there was a brief attempt to name the lake for U. S. Senator Henry M. Rice, who served from 1858 through 1864 as one of Minnesota’s first two senators. His surname ultimately was taken for no fewer than 78 lakes in Minnesota and can be found on Wisconsin lakes as well. (James Shields, the other of the first two Senators from Minnesota, has only a couple of lakes named for him; one of them is in Rice County.)
East Lake and West Lake – Ultimately, early settlers decided to adapt the Okoboozhy name for both lakes and use directional modifiers to distinguish between them.
Comparing the three lakes
West Okoboji is unusual because it is spring-fed and quite a bit deeper than most glacial lakes. It also is the deepest by far of the three lakes. Its maximum depth has been measured variously over time as being anywhere from about 134 feet to 160 feet. It is seven miles long and varies in width from about one-half mile to two miles.
East Okoboji is the shallowest of the lakes with an average depth of 10 feet and a maximum depth of 22 feet. It has 17 miles of shoreline.
Spirit Lake is the largest natural lake in Iowa in terms of area, but its shoreline is a few miles less than East Lake. Spirit, too, is a relatively shallow lake with a maximum depth of about 24 feet.
West Okoboji’s Blue Water legend
One of the enduring and effective early promotional themes for West Okoboji was that it is one of three blue water lakes in the world, the other two being Lake Louise in Canada and Lake Geneva in Switzerland.
Nice try. Not true.
The promotional line – promoted for a time on signage near the bridge spanning the connection between East and West lakes – is said to have been based on an article in National Geographic. No such an article can be found, according to some of us who have looked.
Additionally, the term “blue water lake” appears to have no technical or scientific basis. It does appear in promotional literature for a large number of lakes, however, an obvious attempt to convey beauty, color, purity, or all three. Its use connection with West Okoboji can be traced back to the early 1900s.
The best guess, according to a 2016 article in Iowa Outdoors magazine, may be that it was originated by local tourism and business interests by adapting and reconstructing the findings of a scientific study early in the 20th century, which compared West Okoboji to Lake Geneva.