Twenty-six circuses wintered here.
Delavan Lake is a 1,906-acre glacial lake in Walworth County, Wisconsin, southeast of Lake Geneva — a quieter alternative with an odd history: 26 different circuses wintered here between 1847 and 1894, and the family whose farm hosted them built what's now Lake Lawn Resort.
Delavan Lake sits in southeast Wisconsin's Walworth County, a 1,906-acre natural glacial lake with a maximum depth of 52 feet — smaller and quieter than neighboring Lake Geneva. Its history is unusual even by lake-town standards: Edmund and Jeremiah Mabie's circus wintered here starting in 1847, and 26 different circuses followed through 1894, tying the town's story to the traveling big top and, by local tradition, the invention of pink lemonade. Lake Lawn Resort grew out of that same Mabie family's farm, which became a 50-room guesthouse in 1883 and has operated as the lake's commercial anchor ever since — 271 rooms, two restaurants, a golf course, and the lake's largest marina at 261 slips. Delavan, the Walworth County town at the lake's south end, covers the grocery run; Elkhorn, a short drive north, covers the hospital.
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