Joseph A. Loveless




June 1895 picnic at the southern end of Big Bass Lake (a.k.a. Loveless Lake),

 site of the current public boat landing. Courtesy: Polk County Museum.



Despite a name that lends itself to a blues song (or a blog, for that matter), our humble lake actually takes its name from Joseph A. Loveless, a pioneer and entrepreneur who became one of the area’s first settlers.

I already knew that much, but not many details. But tucked in my handy welcome packet was research on Joseph Loveless done by modern day Loveless Laker, Lane Burke, who also dug up the fabulous photo above.

Joe Loveless was one of a dozen children in a family that never seemed to stay put, according to my take on Lane's research. His parents, Thomas and Sarah Ann, moved the brood of 11 (the 12th was born later) from their New Jersey home to Ohio in 1834, when Joe would have been about 15. This came at a time when our country was just starting to openly debate slavery and Texas was agitating for independence.

When Joseph Loveless was 37, he headed toward Wisconsin with his wife, four children, and an older brother, William. They settled around Balsam Lake, Wis., (now the county seat, a few miles east of Loveless Lake), in 1856.

Joe Loveless quickly became a business leader and man of great civic prominence. He was on the first board of supervisors at Balsam Lake Township, where he and his wife, Eleanor, built a house and raised their family.

For our purposes, Loveless’ claim to fame came in 1860, the year Abraham Lincoln was elected president. That’s when he built a saw mill at the south end of what then was known as Big Bass Lake, but would eventually take his surname.

By this time, Joe Loveless had tried his hand at several enterprises: he had built a shingle mill with his brother and then sold it (no word on how well he fared in the deal); he also operated a “prosperous” grist mill; and was a storekeeper at the Indian Trading Post in Balsam Lake.

The Civil War broke out in 1861, and it would be interesting to know how much Joseph Loveless and his myriad of businesses contributed to the war effort. At around 42, he was probably too old to fight. Wisconsin had been granted statehood in 1848 as a “free state” for slaves. How important was the fight for freedom ?And was the war also good business?

At any rate, that saw mill operated at the base of the lake for 50 years, until 1910, even though Joe, his wife and two of their adult children left the area in the late 1880s and pushed even farther west to Oregon.

It isn’t clear when the name was changed from Big Bass Lake to Loveless Lake. I can imagine there might have been some opposition to taking on a sort of permanent corporate sponsorship. It's possible Joe Loveless put some thought into dispersing controversy as well, because he set aside some land near the saw mill for a school. There was no record of the transaction, according to Lane's research, so perhaps Loveless donated it as a measure of good will.

A log school, known as Bass Lake School (also Loveless School) was built in 1864, shortly after Firman Loveless, the baby of the family, joined his two brothers in the Balsam Lake area. Maybe Firman even pounded a board or two. 

Interestingly, a new school was built in 1875 on an acre of land about a mile south of Big Bass/Loveless Lake, on land that just happened to be owned by Firman. He sold it for $12 (about $247, according to an inflation calculator, not exactly a killing).

Firman moved on to Montana, and William left town and headed to Illinois. But two of Joseph Loveless’ children, Joseph R. and Sarah, stayed in the area for the rest of their lives, presumably swimming, playing and tapping maple syrup around their namesake lake.

So here's to you, Joseph Loveless.

Cleaning up an abandoned property on Big Bass Lake just doesn't have same the ring as our quest to bring a little Love 2 Loveless.