Geneva Lake with the nearby town of Geneva, Illinois, the city was renamed "Lake Geneva"; later the lake was renamed "Geneva Lake". Lakeshore attractions include Big Foot Beach State Park, Lake Geneva Yacht Club, the George Williams College campus of Aurora University, and Yerkes Observatory. The observatory is owned by the University of Chicago, which has established a study group to plan a regional center for science education at the observatory. Public access to the lake is allowed as the result of a decision by early European settlers that "20 feet of land leading up to the shoreline should be public domain."
Lake Geneva than in Geneva. In 563, according to the writings of Gregory of Tours and Marius Aventicensis, a tsunami wave swept along the lake, destroying the fort of Tauredunum and other settlements, and causing numerous deaths in Geneva. Simulations indicate that the Tauredunum event was most likely caused by a massive landslide near the Rhône delta, which caused a wave eight meters high to reach Geneva within 70 minutes. In 888 the town was part of the new Kingdom of Burgundy, and, with it, was absorbed into the Holy Roman Empire in 1033. In the late 1960s, pollution made it dangerous