Geneva Lake (Potawatomi: Kishwauketoe 'Clear Water')[2] is a body of freshwater in Walworth County in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Wisconsin.[3] On its shores are the city of Lake Geneva and the villages of Fontana-on-Geneva-Lake and Williams Bay. The lake covers an area of approximately 5,401 acres (2,186 ha; 8.439 sq mi; 21.86 km2),[3] with a maximum length of 7.7 miles (12.4 km),[3] a mean depth of 61 feet (19 m),[3] and a maximum depth of 135 feet (41 m).[3] Geologists believe that it is a filled-in kettle formed from a receding glacier.[citation needed]
History
Geneva Lake was home to a band of Prairie Potawatomi prior to colonial settlement. During the first three decades of the nineteenth century, the band was led by Big Foot.[citation needed] This led the settlers on Geneva Lake to refer to it as Big Foot Lake.[4]
In the 1830s, a government surveyor named John Brink renamed the lake and the town on it for Geneva, New York, another lakeside town which he thought they resembled.[5] To avoid confusion with the nearby town of Geneva, Illinois, the city was renamed Lake Geneva; later,[when?] the lake was renamed Geneva Lake.[citation needed]
The lake is known as the only place in the world where mail jumping is practiced, an unusual mail delivery system maintained as a local tradition.
Public access to the lake is allowed as the result of a decision by early European settlers that "20 feet [6 meters] of land leading up to the shoreline should be public domain."[7][8][9]
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