[3] Forest Lake village was founded by the Cleveland Cliffs Company in 1890 and first called "Dixon".

[5] The Dixon post office was established in May 1915 and was renamed to and possibly moved to Forest Lake in November 1921.

There were 991 housing units at an average density of 7.0 per square mile (2.7/km2).

Culturally, 16.0% were of German, 12.4% French, 10.7% English, 10.2% Finnish, 8.3% United States or American, 7.0% Swedish, 6.0% Polish and 5.1% French Canadian ancestry.

[3] In 2000, there were 494 households, out of which 28.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 61.7% were married couples living together, 6.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 29.4% were non-families.

23.7% of all households were made up of individuals, and 7.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.