Kirkpatrickville

Lake, also known as Lake Station, Kirkpatrickville, and Acorn, was twelve miles northeast of Franklin in eastern Robertson County. It developed as a depot station on the International and Great Northern Railroad when the line built through the region in the 1870s. The community had a church, a water tower for the railroad, and a small hotel. In 1874 a malaria epidemic swept through eastern Robertson County, reducing the population of Lake Station; some died, and others moved out of the bottomland in which Lake Station was situated. Those departing the area founded a new community, called Acorn, to the west on the prairie. In 1876, however, a post office called Lake Station opened, with John Ramsey as postmaster; the Lake Station office closed in 1878. The new town on the prairie, though termed Acorn by the railroad-and with a post office under that name from 1881 to 1890-was called Kirkpatrickville by the post office department from February to April 1879, in honor of the office's postmaster, one Mr. Kirkpatrick. The settlement continued to be called Acorn until 1890, when its name was changed to Lake. In 1885 the community comprised a population of twenty-five, as well as a store, operated by A. L. Kirkpatrick, two churches, a school, a gin, and a mill. Though by 1890 the community reported more than fifty residents, by the early 1900s it had apparently been abandoned.