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Man proposes museum for northeast Indiana lake town

PLEASANT LAKE, Ind. (WANE) – In the middle of this Labor Day weekend, undoubtedly thousands of people are enjoying the lakes in northeast Indiana and northwest Ohio.

For one man, he is working to preserve the history of the small town of Pleasant Lake.

Elten Powers is proposing a small museum be created. He wants it to showcase the memories of Pleasant Lake.

“This place is not going to be what it once was,” he said. “We’re not going to bring it back to life, but I want the people who live here now who do remember it and their descendants to look at it and say, ‘Oh, look at what this place used to be.’”

In the 1800s four passenger trains used to stop in Pleasant Lake a day. The depot where they stopped is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Today, the grocery stores, department store, doctors office and barber shop are all gone. The museum Powers is planning will have old newspaper articles, pictures, diaries and other memorabilia to showcase the former vibrancy of the town.

Powers is thinking it’ll go inside the former doctor’s office on Main Street.

“It’s an interesting little town,” he said. “The story of Pleasant Lake is probably the story of a lot of little small towns that have faded away over time and perhaps this will encourage them to preserve their memories as well. [Museums of] little towns all over Northeast Indiana. That would be nice.”

Powers will hold a public meeting about the museum at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Steuben Township Fire Department, 1 Main St.