Discovering Door County's Past: A Comprehensive History of the Door Peninsula, Vol. 1: From the Beginning to 1930

488 Pages·1994·75.801 MB·English

by  M. Marvin Lotz

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DI COVERING
1) Ol( COUNTY;S PAST
M. Marvjn Lotz
13. CCrJpreh .,nsive History of the
Door Penjnsula
Jn two volun1es
VOi UME ONE
rro111 th Beninning co 1 )3

DISCOVERING
DOOR COUNTY'S
PAST
A Comprehensive History of the
Door Peninsula
In two vol ume s
VOLUME ONE
From the Beginning to 1930
M. Marvin Lotz
DISCOVERING
DOOR COUNTY'S PAST
Volume One
From the beginning to 1930
HOLLY HOUSE PRESS
FISH CREEK, WISCONSIN
54212
Copyright 1994
All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying or
otherwise, without prior written
permission of the author.
ii
Other books by the author
Twenty Tepee Tales -.1950 (with T. Douglas
Monahan.) A series of Native American stories for young people.
Seventeen printings 1950 -1985
Your Piece of the Peninsula - A Door County
Reference Book For Property Owners and Buyers -1981.
Second printing 1992. Third printing 1994.
iii
lJ'@ Tl' iro:J Im@ca>T!' CC@oo roa~ !!< ?J>iron!J~
IBJ!l'!fWp Ik&1JJ!RlfDip JJ!I'fi/p Jl,Eff!JIJ,/if .&Nm> ~lBJIJ,,ID'f
and our mutual love for the Door Peninsula.
iv
CONTENTS
Introduction - i x
Places frequently mentioned throughout this book
Chapter 1 - Before 1 800 - - - - - -
The early explorers, fur traders,
missionaries, Indians, British, French,
glaciers, the seas. A quiet time.
Chapter 2 - 1800 - 1850 - - - - - - - 20
First fishermen, U.S. occupies
Fort Howard, statehood, territory opened
to settlers, the Claflin's, Captain Bailey.
Chapter 3 - 1850 - 1870 38
Immigrants recruited, log cabins and
stumps, ships, milk into cheese, newspapers,
Door County organized, first lighthouses,
sawmills, communities that disappeared,
and those that survived. Ephraim and the
Moravians.
Chapter 4 - 1870-1900 120
Southern Door fire, end of the pioneer
period, lumber and sawmills, schools,
orchards, dairying, tree nurseries, banks,
shipbuilders, ship canal completed, Sturgeon
Bay bridge opened, railroad arrives, quarries
begin, ice harvests, tourists arrive, villages
grow, saw mills move, housing, churches, mail
and schools.
v
Chapter 5 - 1900-1919 240
First horseless carriages, shipbuilders, lake
ferries, condensed milk, peas, cherries explode.
Ships - types and companies, storms. Ice, oil exploration,
fish. Hackley disaster, school consolidation,
court house entertainment. First state park.
World War 11, Dennett and Chambers Island.
Ephraim Sunday Sings. Sturgeon Bay city.
Chapter 6 - The 1920s 324
The Roaring Twenties - prosperity,
banking, cherries as king, champion milk
producer. Metal ship, Christy,
Palmer Johnson, bus and truck service,
tourism, youth camps, highway construction,
Potawatomi State Park, car ferries, radio's
and movies, golf courses. Hospitals,
automobiles. Cultural activities, Rock Island
and Thordarson. Washington Island Ferry.
Sturgeon Bay resorts.
Essay on Resources 43 2
Index 456