Some History Of Pleasant Lake

[RaceFan]

I was told that Pleasant Lake had a good start as a prosperous town until I-69 was built. I was told that a ferry used to operate on the lake.

Main Street in Pleasant Lake is pictured here on a printed postcard circa 1900 to 1910.

[MERLE1]

In the summer of 1966 I operated the Ice Cube drive-in restaurant, located on the main highway and just north of the truck stop. I think I may have been the last one to operate it, not sure. In any event we did a nice business until Labor Day and then it went way down.
At the time Pleasant Lake had a thriving truck stop, another gas station or two, a grocery store in the main part of town and a hardware.
Looking back it may have been a mistake to stop Howard Bice from building the race track in Pleasant Lake because that would have brought a lot of drivers and fans into town to spend money.

[RaceFan]

That's what happens when some people get their way, because they can't see the big picture. There were some people who complained about the noise and the dust for a few hours on the weekend. Van Smith helped build that track. From what I have been told it was only open approx three weeks.