CORRECTION: The story should have said the Lansing Sailing Club was established 44 years ago.

Haslett — When Walter and Rita DeGruyter moved to Lansing from the Netherlands in 1955, they hoped to move near the water.

After living in the Lansing area for five years and hearing about a nearby lake, the DeGruyters purchased property on Lake Lansing in 1960.

"I moved out here, and everyone told me I was crazy," said Walter DeGruyter, 80.

"They asked, 'Who would want to live in a depressed area?'"

He soon found the water wonderland was anything but depressed.

Lake Lansing, a 450-acre recreational and residential lake at the end of Lake Lansing Road in Haslett, has a rich and vibrant history.

It creates a collective kinship among residents who line the lake's shores.

"It's a place anybody can enjoy, and I think that's very important," he said. "This is the only decent lake within a 60-mile radius. "There's so much history, it's unbelievable."

Pine Lake, what Lake Lansing was called at the time, was the cenhub for the capital area in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Lake Lansing became the official name in 1927.

Horse and buggy, train, or the Pine Lake Trolley were the main forms of transportation from the city to the lake early on.

Haslett Park, the spiritualist camp located on the west side of the lake, was started in 1882 but slowly died out in the early 1900s.

Visitors to the lake could picnic, board a steamer to float along the lake or play games on the beach.

In 1934, a roller coaster, wooden carousel and other amusement park attractions dotted the southern shoreline of the lake, DeGruyter said.

"The entertainment they had over there was unbelievable," he said.

"It was basically the only entertainment they had in Ingham County." Putt-putt gasoline cars were an attraction at what's now Lake Lansing

Park South, 1621 Pike St. in Haslett, where visitors drove around a track on the park grounds, said Bob Moore, department director for Ingham County Parks.

Although the cars no longer run on the track, visitors can now rent free tricycles and venture around the trike track where the amusement park once was, Moore said.

The south park also has a public beach site and a band shell, where musical concerts are performed throughout the summer.

Two miles away, Lake Lansing Park North, 6260 E. Lake Drive in Haslett, offers sand volleyball courts, two playgrounds and a basketball court. The north park also has a boat launch, several picnic shelters, a baseball diamond and 400 acres of hiking trails, Moore said.

"They're very popular trails because they are right in the middle of the area - runners and hikers will use them, and they are popular in the winter for cross-country skiing," he said.

The lake's history seems to be coming alive, DeGruyter said.

"You go over to the park and the grassy area is packed with automobiles," he said. "It's amazing - it's back to like it was back then.

The house on stilts

In the late 1890s, one of the most notable features of Lake Lansing was the Izzer Club, a men's social group that once stood in the middle of the lake on stilts, DeGruyter said.

"There was a problem with drinking in the town, so they built the house, kind of like a restaurant, right across the south park in the middle of the lake," he said. "They had a ferry running back and forth so people could go out there, sit and have a meal and a drink. For them, it was quite a deal to go out and do that stuff."

Guests frequented the two-story house nonstop.

"It was out in the middle of the lake, and there were all kinds of rumors or stories about a trapdoor people fell out of into the water if someone had too much to drink," said Helen Shipley, 62, a resident on the lake.

During that time, a major attraction on the lakeshore was being able to walk a bear in the park for 5 cents, DeGruyter said.

One day, a man had offered the bear's owner enough money to let him board the bear on the ferry and bring it to the Izzer Club for the night, DeGruyter said. Once the bear arrived, it roamed around the outside decks until some people decided to take the bear upstairs to where a man had passed out from drinking too much alcohol.

The man woke up to the bear licking his face, DeGruyter said. They say he jumped up and out of the house into the lake.

The house eventually burned down, and the vacant site where the clubhouse once stood still is visible.

"We call it the party rock," Shipley said. "It's out on a sandbar, and people will go out there, sit on their lawn chairs and just kind of bask in the water."

DeGruyter's property was once owned by the Sea Scouts, who used salvaged lumber from the clubhouse to build a storage shed and a hand pump on the land.

Fond memories

In 1986, The Dells Ballroom, a popular dancing hall and restaurant that was built in 1929 to replace where a hotel resort once stood, was torn down in order to make way for the now standing Northshore Condominiums along the lake in Haslett.

When Rita DeGruyter, 82, would go out for the night in the 1970s, she would meet up with co-workers at the restaurant on the lake.

"At one time, there was a man called 'Sexy Rexy,'" she said. "He would dance around in shorts and there was always a lot of girls there. And then you were allowed to put a dollar in his pants. And we just sat there screaming.

"I bet that guy made a fortune."

The lake as we know it

When Shipley moved to Lake Lansing in 1970, the property where the roller coaster was standing was starting to deteriorate. Eventually, the south park was bought in 1974, after the amusement park had closed and officials soon started to clean up the water.

Dredging of the lake took place from 1972-82, which tremendously improved the quality of the lake.

"The lake had a nasty reputation 30 years ago because of the water quality," said Joe Sheahan, vice president of the Lake Lansing Owner's Property Association, or LLOPA. "That has vastly improved, but some people still think of it that way."

Weeds were a major problem in the lake because of fertilizer runoff from properties, Shipley said. She said there were times when boaters had to back up every 10 feet in order to remove the weeds from the propellors on the boat.

Now, Shipley volunteers to test the water for E. Coli and chlorophyll A. She also does rain event testing each spring for the LLOPA, in which she takes water samples from drains to see what washed in the lake after the snow had melted.

"We try to not make it like a swimming pool, but at least you can boat around without having to back up every 10 feet," she said.

The residents who live on Lake Lansing have formed a tight-knit community over the years, Rita DeGruyter said.

"We have a lot of friends," she said. "And on Fridays, some of us will take our pontoon boats out and tie down."

Walter DeGruyter said neighbors will get together and have Euchre tournaments in the middle of the lake. He also is part of the Lake Lansing Sailing Club, which he helped establish 15 years ago.

"The thing is, we've had people who have worked hard on this lake," he said. "It's a place anybody can enjoy, and that's really important."

The then-hotspot is starting to gain popularity beyond residents of the lake, Walter DeGruyter said.

"We were at the park a couple of weeks ago and it's amazing that in the early 1900s that place was a centerpiece of this whole area," he said.

"And it's coming back again. You go out there on a sunny day, and it's just packed."