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Vandalia Lake

Open-knowledge reference entry

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ34933038 ↗
Source-derived summary

Vandalia Lake is a reservoir in Fayette County, Illinois. Served by Illinois Route 185 and by rural roads, it is 5 miles (8.0 km) northwest of the small Illinois city of Vandalia. The city, which owns the lake for flood control and water-supply purposes, reports that it is 660 acres in size and has a shoreline of 12 miles in length. The lake has a marina, boat dock, campground, and beach. Lake fishing specializes in stocked bass, including largemouth bass. The lake also offers channel catfish and bluegill. Much of the shore of the lake has been developed as real estate.

Water from Vandalia Lake is released into Bear Creek, a tributary of the Kaskaskia River. The lake is located in Shafter Township and Sharon Township, with a tiny fragment of the lake extending into Bear Grove Township. At the time of Abraham Lincoln's service as a pioneer state legislator in the nearby Vandalia State House State Historic Site, a local population of black bears inspired the name of the creek and prairie grove.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Vandalia Lake” as open-knowledge reference entry. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current 174-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Vandalia, Lake and Open-knowledge can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as open-knowledge reference entry. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q34933038. Authority coordinates are 39.004, -89.162. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. 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.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Vandalia Lake primary sources, Vandalia Lake archive and Vandalia research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Vandalia Lake” 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.