Crescent Lake

Crescent Lake used to be called Crooked Pond, and got its prettier name from its crescent shape. It is really a working part of Wolfeboro's waterworks: the Smith River flows through it, carrying Lake Wentworth's water down toward Winnipesaukee, and that flow powered the mills at Wolfeboro Falls from the 1770s all the way into the 1970s, turning out lumber, excelsior, and tool handles.

The dam at the outlet was built in 1855 by the Lake Company to control the water feeding those mills (and, ultimately, the great Merrimack River mill system downstream). The lake's oddest historical footnote came in 1910, when the Crescent Lake Land and Live Stock Company tried to run a large sheep ranch on its shores for wool, meat, and breeding stock. It failed, and the shoreline went back to being what it is now: quiet coves and family camps.

Beyond the mills and the sheep, Crescent Lake's history is mercifully uneventful, which is rather the point of the place. It has spent the last century doing exactly what it does today, giving Wolfeboro families a calm, clear lake five minutes from downtown.