In 1836, individuals from various tribes of native people signed the Treaty of Washington, which ceded the northwest portion of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan to the United States.

At the time, native people lived in the Bear Lake area, evidence remaining in various burial mounds of the region, including one at Pierport.

In 1841, John Stronach and party came to the Manistee area and started a lumber mill.

[5] On May 20, 1862, President Lincoln signed into law the Homestead Act, which offered 160 acres (0.65 km2) of undeveloped federal land to anyone who filed an application, create a farm, and apply for a deed.

Almost immediately, people began exploring the area between Manistee and Traverse City, looking for prime farmland.

Sibley, Elisha Richmond, George W. Hopkins, Simeon Anderson, and others came to Bear Lake on such scouting expeditions.

At the time, the region was entirely heavily forested with white pine and hardwoods, and with only a single walking trail.

By 1864, Simeon Anderson and about 25 other families had started homesteads in the Bear Lake area.

In that year Elisha Richmond made his first failed attempt to move his large family to the area from Illinois.

A post office was established, and the Elisha Richmond family completed the eleven-week journey to Bear Lake.

About this time, Russell Smith made an offer of some of his land to anyone who would set up a saw mill to turn the trees into lumber and a gristmill to create flour from grain.

By 1870, the Hopkins family had switched from brick manufacturing to lumber, primarily putting logs in the Manistee rivers, and floating them to the mills for sale.

The village was platted with 299 lots, and included almost all of the land bordered by the lake on the north, Smith Street on the east, Potter Road on the south, and West Street (which originally ran due north from the current Potter Road – US-31 intersection) on the west.

In fall 1893, the Village of Bear Lake was incorporated by action of the Board of Supervisors of Manistee County.

George W. Hopkins purchased over a hundred thousand acres in Florida (near Cape Canaveral) and he moved his business there, along with parts of the railway.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of 0.32 square miles (0.83 km2), all of it land.

It is one of the schools given the Freedom to Learn grant giving students and teachers use of modern technology such as laptops for use in the classroom.

The Bear Lake area is home to various business and industry; primarily agriculture focusing on fruit production, and tourism due to the lake and the adjacent Manistee National Forest and Pere Marquette State Forest.