The center of the Clear Lake Cemetery is known as “Court House Square”. When this land was platted by Dickirson partner Marcus Tuttle in 1857 it was listed as the town of Livonia. Livonia became famous when Masonic Grove (Mason City) and Livonia vied for the honor of being the Cerro Gordo County seat in 1858.

From 1855 to 1858 there was a war of sorts being fought around the area’s townships. It was sustained over the intensely argued issue of just where to place the future county’s courthouse. All of the recently elected county officials and most the residents were caught up in this strife.

Initially, three appointed commissioners selected the center of Mason City for the county seat location. Several months later, Marcus Tuttle and three other lakers attended the 6th General Assembly at Iowa City in December of 1856 to petition for the appointment of three different commissioners to re-locate the future county seat.

The very next spring, these new commissioners concluded that “the future, as well as present interests of said county, would be most promoted with the selection of a new site near Clear Lake”.

This, of course, didn’t sit well with many of the Mason City promoters.

The Clear Lake promoters named the site the Town of Livonia. The summer of 1857 James Dickirson had a courthouse building constructed at this site….with big plans for the years ahead.

Then in the fall, county officials begrudgingly moved their records, offices and themselves to this new Livonia courthouse.

Yet, that winter a petition was raised by A.B. Miller, signed by numerous citizens, which asked the court to grant an election to determine whether the Cerro Gordo County courthouse should be removed from Livonia back to Mason City.

This brought about a very hotly contested campaign that churned on right up to the election day of April 18, 1858. When Hewitt, Tuttle and Dickirson arrived with an additional voting contingent of Winnebago Indian friends, the election board quickly issued the proclamation – ‘No Indian Shall Vote’.

The issue was finally settled as Mason City carried the day. Court records were removed from Livonia and, later, that maiden county building at the lake was mysteriously burned to the ground.

Livonia was abandoned, however, the streets in our cemetery today are those laid out when Livonia was platted. Dickirson was still the part owner of the land where Livonia once existed, and he and Marus Tuttle agreed to donate the land to the community to be used as a proper cemetery. In 1872, the area was re-platted as the Clear Lake Cemetery.