About Lake Interlochen

Lake Interlochen is a private 12-acre lake with five channels–North Channel, Middle Channel, South Channel, West Channel and Old Channel. There are nearly three miles of shoreline and 1.4 linear miles of water with a maximum depth of 15 feet. This lake is part of the rainwater drainage system serving northwest Arlington. Because of foresight of the developer, this drainage system is a source of aesthetic beauty as well as being used for boating, swimming, and fishing. A pump and overflow system are required to keep the lake at the proper level. The pump is located on City of Arlington property in Bob Findlay Linear Park. Subsurface pipes carry water from the pump to the lake’s channel network when water levels fall. Other subsurface pipes carry water from the lake to the flood plain when water levels rise due to rainfall.

There are 140 waterfront residences and another 126 residences located off the water throughout the 107-acre neighborhood.

 

Our History

The Lake Interlochen community and adjacent Bob Findlay Linear Park are located in an historic area along Village Creek. According to the Arlington Landmark Preservation Commission and the Arlington Parks & Recreation Department, Village Creek valley within Linear Park was home of the largest concentration of Native Americans in Texas.

From prehistoric times, native peoples practiced agriculture along the banks of Village Creek safe from the periodic floods of the Trinity River. Archeological digs have revealed arrowhead points from 5000 BC. The first accounts of recorded history of settlement along Village Creek came in 1542 when royal Spanish map markers recorded a camp that explorers had made here at an Indian village named “Guasco.” They described this area as being the western edge of a “corn belt,” where tribes who grew corn along the creek lived in conical-shaped dwellings thatched with grass or bark and navigated the Trinity River on rafts and canoes made from skins stretched over a framework of willow boughs.

The earliest days of the Republic of Texas record the end of the long history of Native American settlement in the Village Creek area. Expeditions of scouting parties made up of rangers, volunteers and militia cleared the area of Indians to make way for colonists and the land hungry settlers who were being attracted with the sales of land grants in 1841 to the W. S. Peters Emigration Land Company of Louisville, Kentucky.

Before being destroyed in the Battle of Village Creek in 1841, a whole series of villages lay on both sides of the creek. Native local tribes included the Anadarko, Caddo, Keechi, Kickapoo, Tawakoni, Tonkawa, Waco, Waxahachie and Wichita, who were all members of the Caddoan Confederacy. Chief of the Caddo was Tarshar the Wolf.

After the United States forcefully removed all Indians living east of the Mississippi River in 1830, native Texas tribes were invaded by many other tribes from the eastern and southeastern United States. These tribes sought refuge in this area rather than stay in the Indian Territory (Oklahoma) assigned to them in the Removal Act of 1830. Of these, the Cherokee, Biloxi, Ioni, Delaware and the Chickasaw joined Caddoan tribes in the signing of the peace treaty with the Republic of Texas in 1843. By this time the villages of Village Creek had all been abandoned after repeated expeditions of the Texas militia.

 

Our Association

Lake Interlochen Homeowners Association was created in the early 1970s by developer Bob Findlay. The mission of the Association is to maintain, preserve, regulate, and promote the beautification, use, and utility of the lake system, so as to regulate the flow of silt, plant growth, and other accumulating debris and to control the breeding and proliferation of mosquitoes and other pests in or around the lake system.

Owners may make waterfront improvements; however, all improvements lying within the lake easement boundary require special approval by the Lake Interlochen Homeowners Association. Improvements such as walkways, decks, landings, gazebos and landscaping have materially enhanced the beauty of the lakefront. Masonry walls (no higher than three feet) or decorative iron fences which will not obstruct the view along the lake from the rear of houses to the lakefront may be installed by owners.