Lakeville, Connecticut

Geography

Lakeville is in the southwestern part of the town of Salisbury, on U.S. Route 44, 1.5 mi southwest of the Salisbury town center. US 44 leads northeast 8 mi to Canaan village and west 4 mi to Millerton, New York.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Lakeville CDP has an area of 9.6 sqkm, of which 8.2 sqkm is land and 1.4 sqkm, or 14.8%, is water. Most of the water area is part of Lake Wononscopomuc, the state's deepest natural lake.

History

Until 1846, Lakeville was called "Furnace Village", due to the location there of one of the early blast furnaces of the historic Salisbury iron industry (one of which was established in the 1760s by future Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allen. Benjamin B. Hotchkiss, inventor of the Hotchkiss gun, was born in nearby Watertown. A boarding school in his name, the Hotchkiss School, was founded by his widow Maria Bissell Hotchkiss in Lakeville in 1891. It later became coeducational. The Indian Mountain School, a boarding school for students Pre-K through 9th, is south of the Lakeville CDP. It was founded in 1922.

Lakeville was the original home to what eventually relocated and became the Mansfield Training School, an institution for intellectually challenged residents of Connecticut from 1860 to 1993.

Other notable events

Lakeville is the site of Connecticut's oldest cold case. Camp Sloane camper Connie Smith left the camp on Indian Mountain Road on the morning of July 16, 1952. She was ten years old and from Sundance, Wyoming; she was the granddaughter of former Wyoming Governor Nels H. Smith. Several people observed Connie walking and hitchhiking toward the center of Lakeville. She was last seen walking along Route 44 near the intersection of Belgo Road. Connie's disappearance sparked one of the largest searches ever conducted by the Connecticut State Police. She was never found and foul play is suspected. The case remains open and still has a detective assigned to it.

Local institutions

New England's oldest Methodist congregation is in Lakeville.

Lime Rock Park, 4 mi southeast of Lakeville, is a motorsport race track that hosts sports car and stock car races.

YMCA Camp Sloane is in Connecticut, between Indian Mountain Road and Lake Wononpakook, and has operated there since 1928.

Education

It is in the Salisbury School District.

Notable people

• Jill Clayburgh, actress
• Wanda Landowska, musician
• Wassily Leontief, Nobel Economics laureate
• Lot Norton, state politician
• William A. Prendergast (1867–1954), businessman and politician
• Lily Rabe, actress
• MacKenzie Scott, philanthropist
• Artie Shaw, bandleader
• Georges Simenon, author. The town forms the background for his novel La Mort de Belle (The Death of Belle), later adapted to film as The End of Belle
• Rip Torn, actor

References

References

1. "Geographic Identifiers: 2010 Census Summary File 1 (G001), Lakeville CDP, Connecticut". U.S. Census Bureau.
2. "Our Community {{!}} Salisbury Association".
3. "Welcome to Hotchkiss". Hotchkiss School.
4. "Hotchkiss celebrates 125 years". Hotchkiss School.
5. "TIGERweb: Lakeville, Connecticut". Geography Division, U.S. Census Bureau.
6. "IMS by the Numbers".
7. "Mansfield Training School, 1863-1992".
8. Dooling, Michael C. ''Clueless in New England: The Unsolved Disappearances of Paula Welden, Connie Smith and Katherine Hull''. The Carrollton Press, 2010.
9. (September 18, 2009). "Lakeville UMC Celebrates History as It Rethinks Church".
10. Geography Division. (December 22, 2020). "2020 CENSUS - SCHOOL DISTRICT REFERENCE MAP: Litchfield County, CT". [[U.S. Census Bureau]].
11. (June 1880). "Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale College".
12. "AllMovie – Movies and Films Database – Movie Search, Ratings, Photos, Recommendations, and Reviews".