Eagle Springs Lake in Waukesha County is not a place you stumble upon. It sits tucked away, a
For my family, the Powers name has been tied to this water for more than 100 years. That is not a casual stretch of time.
It means cottages built and rebuilt, fishing poles passed down, birthdays celebrated, and the long cycle of summers and winters shaping what the lake means to us.
When I lived here as a teenager, I could not imagine a more boring place.
The quiet seemed suffocating.
The remote feel of Eagle, Wisconsin, felt like the opposite of where life was happening.
Friends lived in other towns. The drive into Mukwonago or Waukesha was a million miles long.
The things that adults admired, stillness, fresh air, the sounds of birds at dawn, meant little to me then. The lake was just water. The woods were just trees.
At that age, I could not see beyond the edges of my own restlessness.
Now, as I return to Eagle Springs Lake for my octogenarian mother’s birthday, I find myself hearing and smelling and feeling the place in a way that is entirely different.
The quiet that used to irritate me now feels like a gift.
The Generational Thread of Eagle Springs Lake
My grandparents lived on this lake when they were probably about the age I am now, fast approaching 60.
They seemed old to me then, though now I understand they were at an age of reflection and appreciation.
They noticed things I ignored, the way the sun rose over the tree line on Penny Island, the scent of the soil after a night rain, the particular way Canada geese skimmed the water before landing.
They appreciated the slower pace of life that the lake demands.
For them, Eagle Springs Lake was not a place to escape.
It was a place to truly live.
The bubbling springs that feed the lake gave them water that was cold and pure.
The sandhill cranes called across the marshes, their voices carrying farther than seemed possible.
In the early mornings, mist rose and curled over the surface, and to them, that was not emptiness, it was abundance.
As a child and teenager, I was blind to all of it.
I wanted activity. I wanted noise. I wanted something else.
But the lake waited patiently. Lakes are like that.
They carry on, generation after generation, unbothered by whether we appreciate them in the moment.
What Changes and What Does Not on Eagle Springs Lake
Returning here now, I see Eagle Springs Lake both as it was and as it is.
Much has changed in Waukesha County.
Development has come closer. Roads are busier, but nothing compared to where I live now, in Charlotte NC.
Yet the lake itself remains grounded in its identity.
The water is still fed by the same springs.
The smell of Wisconsin soil, loamy, earthy, with a faint sweetness, still rises in the air.
If you’ve ever lived in midwest, you recognize it instantly.
Canada geese still trace their paths overhead.
Sandhill cranes still bugle in the early hours.
The sunrises are as bright and clear as ever.
Even the mosquitoes (the “State Bird of Wisconsin”) still swarm if there isn’t a breeze to send them back to Chicago and the “flat landers.”
What has changed is not the lake but me.
I now hear in those sounds what my grandparents once heard.
I now value what my mother values.
I now find myself grateful for what I once resisted.
The Cottage and the Course
Our own connection to Eagle Springs Lake took physical shape in 1929, when the family built a cottage along the shoreline.
Modest by today’s standards, “the big house” carried everything a family needed.
The picture windows on the porch, still there today, frame the lake perfectly for early mornings with a cup of coffee.
That cottage sits beside the Eagle Springs Golf Resort, which has a history nearly as long as the lake’s summer cottages.
Dating back to 1893, the course is remembered as one of the oldest in Wisconsin.
Golfers from Milwaukee, Chicago, and beyond made their way here to play its nine holes and breathe in the same crisp air rising off the lake.
The Tuohy family, Irish immigrants who settled the land in the nineteenth century, helped shape that resort.
Their farm became part of the property, and their name, like ours, remains woven into the history of Eagle.
Growing up here meant knowing those names, the families who owned the land, and the stories attached to every shoreline and fairway.
A golf swing, a fishing pole, and a cottage key all carried the same message. This place endures.
Palmyra Connections
The Powers family story does not stop at Eagle.
A short drive west leads you to Palmyra, where the name still lingers in stone and memory.
David J. Powers helped found the village in the 1840s, serving as its first postmaster and later as a representative in the Wisconsin State Assembly.
He guided the town’s early growth, from its layout to its railroad connection, and his influence is part of Palmyra’s foundation.
Later generations carried that legacy forward.
William Penn Powers and F. W. Powers (for whom I am named) contributed to the town’s civic and cultural life, most visibly through the gift of the Powers Memorial Library in 1927, which still serves as Palmyra’s center for learning and gathering.
For nearly a century, townspeople have walked through its entryway to read, learn, and gather.
It is more than a building, it is a marker of continuity, a symbol that the Powers family believed in leaving more than footprints on a shoreline.
The library is one part of our family legacy. The lake is another.
Together they show that the Powers story has always been about connection to water, to land, and to community.
Family Names on Eagle Springs
The Powers family has been part of Eagle Springs Lake for more than a century. For at least eight decades, the Conroy name has belonged here too.
There are stories of swimming and sailing, of ice fishing in the dead of winter, of bonfires on the shore, and of long, lazy afternoons where nothing seems to happen except the slow turn of the sun.
It also means funerals, marriages, and birthdays.
My mother, a Conroy, marked her eightieth this year. That celebration was not just another candle on a cake. It was a reminder of how much life the lake has carried for both sides of our family, and how names become part of the water that holds them.
The Rhythm of Eagle Springs
There is a rhythm to lake life that is different from anywhere else.
The mornings are unhurried.
You wake to light glinting across the water and the sound of fish breaking the surface.
You pour coffee, step outside, and realize the day will unfold without your control.
The afternoons are about water, swimming, fishing, paddling, or just watching others do the same.
Evenings bring the cooling air, the smell of dinners cooked with open windows, and the soft call of settling geese somewhere in the marsh near Lulu lake.
In winter, the rhythm shifts.
Ice creeps across the surface until the lake is silent and still.
Snow blankets the cottages, and life seems to hibernate.
Yet even then, the lake does not disappear. It waits, storing the energy that will burst forth in spring.
My grandparents knew this cycle. My parents lived it. I now return to it with appreciation that feels new.
Seeing the Lake with New Eyes
It is a strange thing to realize that the place you once wanted to escape is the place you now treasure.
At nearly 60, I find myself valuing what seemed dull to my teenage self.
I see the wisdom my grandparents carried when they sat quietly on the porch, watching the light change.
I understand why my mother speaks of the lake not as property but as part of who she is.
The quiet no longer feels like a lack of something.
It feels like the presence of everything that matters. The remoteness no longer feels inconvenient.
It feels protective, as if the lake has guarded its essence against the rush of modern life.
A Place That Holds Time
Eagle Springs Lake is not the largest or most famous lake in Wisconsin.
It does not need to be.
Its meaning is not in size or recognition. It is in the way it holds time.
A century of family has moved through this place, yet the lake has remained steady.
When you return after years away, you realize that the water has always been there, the same cold clarity fed by those bubbling springs.
The air has always carried that loamy scent after rain.
The birds have always called.
The sun has always risen, bright and sharp, over the horizon.
You change. Generations pass. But the lake continues, carrying all of it.
The Lake as Legacy
Eagle Springs Lake is now, for me, a reminder that what once seems boring can later prove to be the most important.
As a teenager, I longed for noise and movement.
As I grow older, I understand that the stillness of the lake is not emptiness but depth.
It is memory, connection, and continuity.
For the Powers family, this lake has been more than water and shoreline.
It has been a companion for over a hundred years.
It holds our history, our joys, our losses, and our celebrations.
It holds the laughter of children swimming, the quiet prayers of grandparents, and the milestones of a mother’s birthday at 80 years old.
The lake will outlast me, as it outlasted those before me.
And that is the point.
Eagle Springs Lake carries us all, generation after generation, with its cold, pure water and its steady rhythm.
What once was boring is now, unmistakably, peace.
About the Author
Bill Powers is a trial lawyer based in Charlotte, North Carolina, with more than thirty years of courtroom experience. A Board-Certified Specialist in Criminal Law by the National Board of Legal Specialty Certification / National Board of Trial Advocacy, he has built his career representing people facing complex cases in North Carolina, while also teaching and serving in statewide legal leadership roles. Away from the courthouse, Bill returns to his family’s home at Eagle Springs Lake in Wisconsin, where generations of the Powers and Conroy families have lived, celebrated, and reflected. For Bill, the lake is more than a place of respite. It is a reminder of continuity, legacy, and the enduring connections that shape both family and professional life. If you need legal help in the Charlotte-metro region, Bill Powers and the Powers Law Firm is available for consultation on matters including DUI/DWI, criminal charges, serious personal injury matters, and collaborative family law. Check out our websites: CarolinaAttorneys.com, Injury.CarolinaAttorneys.com and Charlotte-Divorce-Lawyers.com