Lake King is a town located in the Eastern Wheatbelt region of Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

, 464 kilometres (288 mi) from Perth

Perth, Western Australia

Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....

 along State Route 107 between Wagin

Wagin, Western Australia

Wagin is a town and shire in the Great Southern region of Western Australia, approximately 225 km south-east of Perth on the Great Southern Highway between Narrogin and Katanning. It is also on State Route 107. The main industries are wheat and sheep farming.-History:The name of the town is...

 and Ravensthorpe

Ravensthorpe, Western Australia

Ravensthorpe is a town 541 km south east of Perth, 40 km inland from the south coast of Western Australia. It is the seat of government of the Shire of Ravensthorpe...

.

Lake King is named after a nearby lake which in turn was named after the Surveyor General

Surveyor General

The Surveyor General is an official responsible for government surveying in a specific country or territory. Originally this would often have been a military appointment, but is now more likely to be a civilian post....

 of Western Australia, Henry Sanford King, by Marshall Fox, the surveyor from Narrogin.

Settler

Settler

A settler is a person who has migrated to an area and established permanent residence there, often to colonize the area. Settlers are generally people who take up residence on land and cultivate it, as opposed to nomads...

s began arriving in the area in 1928 shortly after the area was surveyed and land was released. The town struggled through the depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 but thrived in the postwar

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 years on the back of high wool

Wool

Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....

 and wheat

Wheat

Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...

prices.

The Lake King Progress Association lobbyed the government to declare a townsite in 1935 and the town was gazetted in 1936.