White Lake Property Owners Association
Photos of White Lake
Our Mission: The White Lake Property Owners
Association is dedicated to preserving and
protecting the quality and enjoyment
of White Lake for all current and future stakeholders.
A Note About These Photos: I'm hoping to get contributions from other property owners of their photos of the lake. (Send them to whitelakepoa (at) gmail.com.) Until I do, most of the pictures on this page are from the Elfner Archives. There are three things you should know: 1) Our cottage has been at the southeast corner of the lake since 1954, so most photos are from that perspective. 2) My father, Eliot, and I liked to process our own film so most of our shots even into the 70s and 80s are black and white. 3) We take a lot of pictures of sunsets (yes, even in black & white.)
The original photographer retains the copyright to all these photos. Please do not use without permission. Click the links below to skip to the referenced decade.
2000s - 1990s - 1980s - 1970s - 1960s - 1950s - 1940s - Early 1900s
June 2011 - Sunrise over White Lake by Karen Weiss.
August 2007 - Photos of a salvaged rowboat allegedly dating to the days of Buck's Resort.
May 2007 - I took a better current photo of our beach for the water levels page. Coming down the steps the lake seemed very small to me. I also took a current photo of Buck's point. Compare it to the 1985 views below and look at all that beach that used to be underwater.
Thanksgiving 2006 - was a beautiful day for a walk around the lake. Scharenberg's beach has a wonderful, desolate feel to it during the off-season. After being underwater for 20 years, it was interesting to see the entire point, walk on the treacherous granite blocks and see the remains of the duck blind. Over halfway around, we stopped to take a picture looking east. Everyone's pier parts were stored safely out of the ice's reach.
Fall 2006 - Black and White Satellite Photo from Microsoft Earth. Looks pretty recent with a lot of beach showing.
Labor Day 2006 - Video of waterskiing around the East half of the lake on Youtube.
1998 - Several shots of low water levels just west of the point. Thanks to Jill Guzzetta (John Guzzetta's daughter) for taking the photos and giving us permission to use them here.
circa 1992 - Undated Satellite Photo from Mapquest. I'm guessing early 1990s because the lake basin still looks pretty full with the point underwater. I pulled it down in early 2007 though, and they're usually more recent than that.
May 1989 - A photo of the beach on the south side of the lake starting to reappear after the high water. And a sunset.
October 1988 - Another sunset. This was the first time I had paid attention to the sunset around the time of the autumnal equinox. It's setting true west. When we see it in the summer, it's much further to the north.
November 1987 - High water levels at the resort. You can really see in this photo from November how the water was lapping against the seawalls they had to build to protect the cottages. The walls are still there, but there's 30 feet of sand between them and the water now. Here's another shot from the Elfners' deck toward Buck's point.
1987 - High water levels at just west of the point. Thanks to Jill Guzzetta (John Guzzetta's daughter) for taking the photos and giving us permission to use them here. That is John Guzzetta clearing trees in the second photo.
April 1985 - My buddy, Tom, and I ran an errand to deliver some carpet to the cottage. Then we shot off some firecrackers at the beach. Check out the old A&W cans! Rold Gold pretzels still look the same (see the firecracker in mid-air?) From this picture of Buck's Point (behind the ducks) you can see how threatened some homes were from the high water. Start pumping, Frank! This is another good shot of the water levels looking east toward the resort. Finally, the sun came out.
June 1984 - A nice shot of our beach for my lake levels page. And one of Buck's Point. I have vague memories that the A-Frame used to be a one story boathouse. It must have been built into a cottage in the early 70s. Imagine trying to get a variance for something like that today!
May 1984 - Twilight at the resort. Man, I loved those old diving boards. And then sunset.
September 1983 - A couple of waterskiing photos showing the west end of the lake when the water was high (Photo 1, Photo 2)
June 1983 - Remember the Chinese Geese that used to roam around the lake? They were mean! Next is one of my favorite black and white photos. The Richter's gold bass boat framed by silhouetted tree branches. I was up in a tree for a new perspective and they came cruising by. You know the pond in front of the ninth green at White Lake Country Club? It wasn't always so well-groomed and cruelly-placed to eat golf balls (photo 1, photo 2.) Finally, a young skier comes in for a landing. Pretty sure that's Jon, and I like how the boat and skier are going their separate ways. One more grainy one from the tree looking down at Scharenberg's swim area. Note the old pier, slide and diving boards (that slide that I played on as a kid was there until 2005, so my kids got to play on it too.)
circa Spring 1983 - Aerial Photo. This was coordinated by a WLPOA member and distributed/sold at an annual meeting. If anyone remembers who put this together, let me know so I can give proper credit. Lake basin was very full in those days!
September 1956 - Found some great shots of the lake on some old slides from my grandparents. Here is a look across the lake from our beach. This is my Uncle Rick with some water skis. He was too young to ski, so he is riding some sort of zip sled behind the 15hp boat. Here's another one of Uncle Rick and my Grandma Elfner on our porch deck (about the only part of our place that still looks as it did.) It's notable that it includes a young Frank Scharenberg on the right. And evidently my grandfather admired a sunset over the lake as much as my Dad and I do. Look at all the vegetation on the point.
May 1955 - These are the earliest photos I have of the lake. Uncle Rick is walking among the tangle of weeds at the edge of the lake. This looks remarkably like most of our beach does today! And an early picture of Buck's point before any A-Frames were there.
1952 or Before - Bill Vich shared an old post card he has with the text "White Lake Beach Resort, Montello, WI". It was cancelled by the post office in 1952, so the card was produced sometime before then. I do not recognize anything from the photo, and it looks hillier and more wooded than the backdrop of the Scharenbergs. Here's a close-up of the structures in the photo. To me it looks like a shot from the west side of the lake looking to the left of the point. Or it could be a photo from the resort's beach. Or it could be the resort itself in 1952. I wasn't here then! Drop me an e-mail if you recognize anything.
1948 - Sally Eaglin shared some photos from her mother's photo album of the Eaglin (Lenz) cottage being built at the southwest corner of the lake. Here is the front of the cottage on being constructed May 15, 1948, the rear on the same day, the front on May 16 and the rear on May 16. This is the East elevation on May 23. This photo is from their beach looking northeast toward the point on May 23. Finally they enjoy the beach in front of their new cottage in August 1948.
She included this photo from behind her cottage. She tells me that today, the Young's home would be right behind the ringer washer. The cottage in the background is where the Coursey's home stands today, but the one in the picture was taken down long ago.
1946 - This photo was taken at the Shewman cottage, which is the Nilles cottage today.
Early 1900s - These aren't actually of White Lake, but I found some neat postcards of Montello's Main Street looking west and the Montello Granite Company. They are not dated, but they appear to be early in the 1900s. I recognize the one of the quarry. I think it's in a historical display where the old grocery store used to be. I got them from a Rootsweb site of Penny Postcards.
I would love to see and include any photos you have of the lake. Send them to the address below and let me know if it's OK to post them on this site.
Contact webmaster at whitelakepoa (at) gmail.com. (You'll have to be a little smarter than the spam web-bots and reformat our address into a proper e-mail address. Thanks!)
Last Updated by Eric Elfner in February 2008 (What's New?)
Copyrights to all photos belong to the original photographer.
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