My Hometown
Chippewa Lake is the small town in which I grew up. It has a very modest population. As a matter of fact it is so little that it doesn’t even have a traffic light. That didn't matter to me though. I loved growing up there. It was the kind of town where everyone knew everyone else. Sometimes that wasn’t always the best thing. If you were going to do something that would get you into trouble then you had better count on your parents finding out at the local corner store the next day. And that is what I love about Chippewa Lake. It's a cozy slow moving town that always made you feel welcomed.
Chippewa Lake, like other small communities has its claim to fame. In the middle part of the 20th century The Chippewa Lake Amusement Park was the place to be. I would compare it with a modern date State Fair, only safer. They had a Grand Ballroom that all the big names in the music industry at that time would come and perform. The Ball Room was one of the last structures to meet its demise. On June 13, 2002 it fell victim to arson. The picture on the left shows The Chippewa Lake Amusement Park in its prime. The photo on the right shows what remains of the old Ballroom.
These days the village in which I grew up in is suffering from the down economy much like the rest of the country. The park has long since closed and the foreclosure rate is horrid. With the amount of foreclosures that Chippewa Lake has seen as of late it’s no wonder why the quality of the residents has declined. It seems like when times get tough financially the good people get going. Then of course the housing prices drop and the businesses close down. From that point, it's only a matter of time before the entire community becomes a desolate wasteland.
At one point it really was a good place to raise a family. Unfortunately the key word in that statement is “was”. I hope that someday Chippewa Lake can recover from these hard times.