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7 July 1902
Date and instrument stand in one sentence of Howard's, and it is the whole of his statement on the act. "Lakeville became an incorporated town by order of the board of county commissioners, July 7, 1902" (Howard, 1907, closing line of his Lakeville section, read first-hand). The instrument is therefore the commissioners' order itself — a stronger carrying than the sister build to the west had, where Howard gave a date alone. What Howard does not give — and gives other towns in the same chapter — is the road to the order: no petition, no signers, no election, no vote count. Whether a petition and election preceded the order is not reached; its settler is the St. Joseph County Commissioners' Record for the July 1902 term, secondarily the town's first minute book, and the want stands as a named gap in this build's note. Chapman (1880) necessarily predates the act; his Lakeville is an unincorporated village of "several hundred inhabitants." The year travels with variants, printed in the register: the town's reference record agrees with Howard's 1902; the EPA's town profile prints 1905; one directory compilation prints the town "created in 1901" and an "establishment" of 1 January 1902. Howard governs; the variants stand as printed.