[3] Lakeshore also has a historic black community, along the Puce River, made up of descendants of refugee slaves from the South in the United States who immigrated to Canada for freedom, using the Underground Railroad network.

[4] The Municipality of Lakeshore comprises the communities of Belle River, Comber, Deerbrook, Elmstead, Emeryville, Haycroft, Lighthouse Cove, North Woodslee, Pike Creek, Pleasant Park, Puce, Ruscom Station, South Woodslee, St. Joachim, Stoney Point, and Strangfield, as well as the far eastern section of Tecumseh.

Although incorporated as a town, the vast majority of Lakeshore is rural, being made up of cleared farmland predominantly used for the cultivation of cash crops such as soybeans and winter wheat.

Areas along Lake St. Clair and the Puce, Belle, and Ruscom rivers were originally occupied by the Huron and Wyandot First Nations.

The coast of Lake St. Clair and lots fronting the Puce, Belle, and Ruscom rivers were first surveyed in 1793 by Patrick McKniff.

Much of the present town of Lakeshore was once owned by a single speculator, the fur trader John Askin: by 1797, he held 80 lots, concentrated primarily along the Pêche (Pike) Puce, Belle, and Ruscom rivers.

Under the direction of Henry Walton Bibb, the society purchased scattered lots in and around Maidstone, Puce, and Belle River to resettle refugee blacks.

Although Michigan was a free state, slavecatchers operated in Detroit to capture refugees for the high bounties offered under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

[9] Other landowners, including John Gracey and William MacDowell, two Scotch-Irish Presbyterians from Comber, Ireland followed suit.

[12] The earliest industries in the town were operated by Luc and Denis Ouellette, who established a sawmill and gristmill on opposite sides of the river.

The Wellington hotel, once located on Notre Dame, the town's main street, exported alcohol to the United States.

In the 1920s, James Scott Cooper, a well-known local entrepreneur and bootlegger, built mansions from his profits in Walkerville and Belle River.

The prominence of manufacturing is an outgrowth of the town's proximity to Windsor and Detroit, the historic centre of North American automobile production.

Since 1989, Belle River has been known as the "Jet Ski Capital of Canada" due to the numerous personal watercraft riders and racers in the town, many of whom are American visitors.

The Atlas Tube Recreation Centre opened in Lakeshore in September 2014, home to three ice rinks, an indoor walking track, gymnasium, library, and community program rooms.