In downtown Lake Mills there is a handsome two-story Richardsonian Romanesque commercial building (c. 1890) with a pair of polished granite columns that greet you at its entrance (south side of West Main Street, between Washington and Mill avenues). At the northeast corner of West Main and Mill Avenue is a commercial brick building with red sandstone trim. It exhibits a square corner tower with a metal roof; in style it is Queen Anne coupled with the earlier Italianate. Also on West Main between Washington and Mill avenues is a classic mid-1930s Moderne-style theater, the Mills Theater. The lettering on the marquee is especially effective. Going away from the downtown on Lincoln Avenue (northwest corner of Lincoln and Third avenues) one finds a two-story Queen Anne house (c. 1895) whose wood detailing is closer to the classicism of the Colonial Revival. Southeast of Lake Mills is Rice Lake State Park (drive south on route R74 to route A34, travel east to park entrance). The park contains wood and stone shelters and buildings, a number of which date from the 1930s.
Lake Mills
Last accessed: September 15, 2026.
Print Source
Buildings of Iowa, David Gebhard and Gerald Mansheim, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, 407-407.