Lake Louise State Park
state park in Mower County, Minnesota, USA

Lake Louise State Park is a Minnesota state park just north of the Iowa border near the small town of Le Roy in Mower County, Minnesota, directly south of Rochester. It has a 25 acre man-made lake and 1,168 acres (5 km2) of mixed prairie and deciduous forest. It is used for picnics, swimming, camping, hiking, horseback riding, and other outdoor recreation. It is noted for butterfly watching, as some rare species have been seen. It features a picnic shelter which dates to the Public Works Administration era.
History
Sometime in the late 1850s or early 1860s, Conrad Hambrecht settled in section 21 of Le Roy Township on the Upper Iowa River near the Old Village of Leroy. An earthen dam was later built on the river and Hambrecht's land sat along the small lake that was created. Hambrecht set aside this part of land for recreation and he later donated the land, then called Wildwood Park, to the city of Le Roy with the stipulation that it be used as a park. The original dam was washed away and the citizens of Le Roy rebuilt it and named the body of water "Lake Louise" for Hambrecht's sister. In 1961 local advocates arranged a visit by state park officials, who agreed that Wildwood Park could be expanded into a state park.
“Lake Louise State Park” enters the record as state park in Mower County, Minnesota, USA. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Lake, Louise and State can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Lake Louise State Park” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Lake, Louise and State provides the most credible route into that argument.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6476685. VIAF identifies the subject as 315528555. Authority coordinates are 43.534, -92.525. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1961.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lake Louise State Park” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.