The land under Ames Lake was not originally owned by Washington State. Instead, it was issued by the federal government.

The Homestead Act of 1862 allowed settlers to claim 160 acres of public land near Ames Lake by living on it for five years and cultivating the land.

When Washington became a state in 1889, it reserved the beds of lakes for public ownership. In most cases, that meant lake bottoms belonged to the state, even if the surrounding land was private.

However, because the federal grants were made before statehood, the usual constitutional rule reserving lakebeds to the state did not apply to Ames Lake. By the time Washington entered the Union, the federal government had already transferred that land into private ownership.

The north edge of Ames Lake was the first part of the lakebed to become privately owned. Other portions of the lakebed became private through a railroad land grant authorized under the Pacific Railway Act of 1862, which transferred large areas of federal land to support railroad construction in the West.

Today, because Ames Lake is non-navigable and is surrounded by private plats, the state does not own its lakebed. This makes Ames Lake one of the only lakes in the state where private ownership extends below the water itself.