Door County, Wisconsin - Chapter 14: Assessments and Taxes, 1917

In the following pages are some columns of figures which will prove of interest to the reader. They contain the assessed valuation of every town and assessment district in Door County, as equalized by the annual county boards, from 1862 to 1916. 'Step by step it records in dollars and cents the history of the county's material prosperity and development from the time when the various towns were valued only at the price of a present day farm to cur present total county assessment of more than twenty million dollars.

It is regrettable that our very earliest assessments are lost. The first assessment was made by the county board, consisting of Henry Schuyler and Wm. J. Nolan, in an adjourned meeting held December 5, 1857, in Nolan's house on Washington Island. At this meeting the assessed valuation of all improved lands was fixed at $3 per acre, of unimproved at $2.50, and of pine lands at $6. As there probably was not 100 acres of improved lands in the entire county in that year the proceeds from the first class were very small. Perhaps five thousand acres of unimproved lands were held by fishermen and the very few prospective farmers. Of pine iands the entries were nearly all within the present boundaries of the City of Sturgeon Bay and probably amounted to the same acreage as the unimproved lands held by private owners in the county. In this year (1857), however, all the mills of Sturgeon Bay failed owing to the panic and the taxes were returned. It is therefore safe to assume that the entire assessed valuation of the county, less the assessment of lands on which taxes were returned, in 1857 and for a year or two following was less than twenty thousand dollars, or the price of a good present day farm.

'The first figures on record are for the year 1862. By this time the county had largely emerged from that slough of despond into which it had fallen in the panicky days of 1857, many prospective farmers had picked lands and moved in, a number of villages had been platted and started and the county was able to support a news- paper. The assessed valuation of the county, as equalized by the county board consisting of A. G. Warren, D. H. Rice and M. Schmitz, is therefore high and optimistic. Sevastopol heads the list with a valuation of $57,511, while Brussels, including Gardner and Union, with a population of several hundred Belgians and the large mill of F. B. Gardner at Little Sturgeon, comes second with a valuation of $53,669. The Town of Washington which by this time had been settled by fishermen for twenty-five years is assessed at $20,182.

Apparently the county board of 1862 was too liberal in its interpretation of the county's resources. Three years later we find another county board, consisting of Jos. Colignon, James Gillispie and Allen H. Powers, take a far more gloomy view of the situation. Sevastopol's valuation has been cut in two and the valuation of the Town of Washington is only one-third of what it was three years previously.

The county board from the year 1862 to 1869 consisted of only three members, the county being divided into three districts. Their ridiculous methods of equalizing taxes well illustrates the pernicious character of this system. This small committee of three men met once a year and arbitrarily fixed the valuation of the different towns to suit itself. If they had a little grudge to settle toward a certain neighborhood, perhaps for lack of political support or other cause, they arrogantly increased the valuation of the land from two to three dollars per acre and there was no one there to protect the aggrieved district. For instance, in 1867 the county board increased the assessment of Liberty Grove from $33,192 to $83,481 and at the same time decreased the assessment of the 'Town of Brussels from $27,736 to $24,200. Yet Brussels at this time had four times as many acres of cleared land, being a town of a large and comparatively prosperous population as compared to Liberty Grove, which had only a few new struggling Scandinavian settlers in it.

The highhanded manner in which these early arbitrary county boards levied and equalized taxes is enough to make a worshiper of justice weep with vexation. There was a state board of equalization but it did not seem to have exerted any control over local taxation. Lands were classified as improved and unimproved. All improved lands were assessed at the same value, usually either $2.50 or $3.00 per acre regardless of location, topographical conditions, fertility or drainage. The equalization of taxes was theréfore a pernicious farce. The owners of well improved farms near the Village of Sturgeon Bay paid no more tax per acre than did the new settlers in the backwoods of Jacksonport or Liberty Grove. Sometimes they even paid less. In 1872 all lands in the county were assessed at $3 per acre except Washington, which was listed at $2, and Sturgean Bay, which was listed at $2.50. The Town of Brussels tried hard to have its assessment also cut to $2 per acre.

This price of $3 per acre was kept for a number of years with occasional variations according to the strength of the plea of the various chairmen. The assessed valuation of the county therefore shows only a slight increase during the ten-year period from 1868 to 1877. In fact, the total assessed valuation of the entire county was 514.000 less in 1877 than it was in 1869. In 1877 it was $724,397 and in 1869 it was $738,486.

The members of the committee on equalization in 1877 labored under the very common delusion that the lower the assessment the lower would be the taxes. 'They did not realize that the same amount of taxes have to be raised whether the assessment is high or low. They therefore cut the assessment to the following prices per acre: Town of Washington, $1.75 per acre; towns of Gardner and Union, $2 per acre; towns of Baileys Harbor, Brussels, Clay Banks, Egg Harbor, Gibraltar, Jacksonport, Liberty Grove, Nasewaupee, Sevastopol and Sturgeon Bay, $2.25 per acre; Town of Forestville, $2.50 peracre. The Village of Sturgeon Bay was assessed at only $30,745, or about half of what it had previously been assessed at. After a big fight the village was raised $10,000, and Union, Gardner and Brussels were raised twenty-five cents per acre. This arbitrary assessment drew forth a sharp protest from Jacksonport in which it was claimed that "Sturgeon Bay is worth at least $300,000, whereas it is assessed for only $40,000, or considerably less than the value of the two sawmills and the grist mill." 'This was the low water mark in assessed valuations in the entire state. All that was accomplished by this was to give the county a bad advertisement as an unprogressive and poverty stricken section. The committee that put this through were Alexis Frank of Brussels, J. T. Wright of Sturgeon Bay Village and Hans Torgerson of Liberty Grove.

'The next year, 1878, an honest attempt was made to make assessments keep pace with the development of the county. The members of the committee this year were A. Henderson of Liberty Grove, John Fetzer of Forestville and Joseph Zettel of Sevastopol. Brussels and Forestville were assessed at $4 per acre, Clays Banks and Sevastopol at $3.50, and all other towns at $3, except Washington, which was $2.75. The Village of Sturgeon was put at $70,000, or

After this there is a small but steady increase year by year until 1892. Beginning with this year we have another long period of stagnation of values. For seven years following the total assessed valuation of the county remained practically the same, being in the neighborhood of two million dollars. During several of these years there was a protracted financial depression, accompanied by local grasshopper plagues, and hailstorms which may account for a large part of this stagnation. The chief trouble, however, was that the county board did not take the equalization of taxes seriously. The law requiring assessments to be made at full value was entirely forgotten and the prevailing idea was to keep county and state taxes down by making low assessments.

In 1902 we finally come to a beginning of a business-like assessment. 'The equalization committee of the county board of 1902 did real work, based on the report of Mr. L. D. Mowry, the supervisor of assessments. He adopted the sales method, computing the sales for the three previous years and aligning the assessments of the various towns accordingly. 'The committee on equalization for this year were S. A. Rogers, Nic Moeller, D. E. Englebert and Alex. Meikle, and as a result of their initiative the deadlock in Door County's annual financial report was broken. The assessment of the county more than doubled the figures of the preceding year. This method has since been followed, though not very strictly until lately. However, the county showed a healthy growth. Door County is now doing quite well in the matter of assessments, some of the towns assessing at almost full value. Among the most faithful assessors are Gibraltar. which at present (1916) heads the list. According to the published report of the income assessor of this district, Mr. H. A. Dvorak, with an assessment of 94 per cent of the true value of its realestate. Next comes Brussels with 87 per cent and Forestville with 86 per cent. The assessed valuation of the county in 1916 was $20,771,885 of which more than $10,000,000 was added since 1911.

The problem of equalizing the assessments of the various districts in the county is each year the most important matter before the county board and frequently has given rise to very spirited arguments. The finding of the county board has, however, been accepted as final every year with two exceptions. The first was in 1889 when Mr. Frank Wellever, chairman of the Town of Egg Harbor, appealed from the action of the county board. The report on the equalization was that year adopted by a vote of ten to nine. This report placed a value on the lands of Egg Harbor at only fifteen cents per acre less than the value of the lands of Sevastopol and only twenty-five cents less per acre than those of Forestville, the best farming town in the county. According to the statutory provisions of that time a commission was appointed by the circuit judge to investigate the merits of the appeal. After a prolonged investigation the commission ordered a refund of $76 to be paid to Egg Harbor, while it levied a proportionate increase against Forestville. A few minor changes were also made. The history of this appeal is interesting in that, while the commission made but slight changes, its expenses amounted to $1,534, which was levied against the county. It had, however, a beneficial influence upon the assessment of Egg Harbor which was kept down for the next ten years.

The second appeal was taken by the town of Clay Banks from the report adopted by the county board in 1915. The history of this appeal is very important because it showed the danger of relying too much on the sales method of ascertaining valuations. The supervisor of assessments for Door and Kewaunee counties, Mr. H. A. Dvorak, basing his findings on the sales, gave Clay Banks the credit of being assessed more nearly at true value than any other town. 'The equalization committee devoted much time to its work and disagreed with many findings of his report. Particularly did it find that Clay Banks, instead of being the best, was one of the poorest assessed towns in the county. It, therefore, recommended an increase in the assessment of Clay Banks of about one hundred thirty thousand dollars, or about 33 per cent. Its report was adopted by the county board by a vote of fifteen to four.

An appeal was made by the town of Clay Banks to the State Tax Commission. This commission met in the courthouse in Sturgeon Bay the following April, 1916. Mr. Dvorak appeared on behalf of Clay Banks. He claimed that the assessment fixed by the county board was unjust and excessive because the sales for five years on which he had based his values showed no such value of the real estate. 'The method he followed was recommended by the tax commission. Mr. H. R. Holand, member of the equalization committee, appeared on behalf of the county. He stated that the committee had found it necessary to set aside the sales used by the supervisor of assessments because they did not reflect true values. Among other arguments he presented a list showing the assessed values of the lands on both sides of the town line between Clay Banks and Forestville. While the lands averaged the same in quality the twenty-four forties on the Clay Banks side were assessed just $24,000 less than the twenty-four forties of the Forestville side of the line. Notwithstanding this much higher assessment of Forestville lands the supervisor of assessments had rated Clay Banks as being assessed at 89 per cent of true value while Forestville was rated at 84 per cent. This proved the fallacy of the sales method in this instance.

The tax commission obtained verbatim reports of all the testimony. After taking the matter under advisement it rendered its verdict in July, 1916, in which it concurred in all the figures of the county board. During the following year the supervisor of assessments made a thorough investigation into the value of Clay Banks. He found that his sales data were misleading and that the county board had been right in raising its assessment. Indeed, he found that the board had been too conservative for in his next report he recommended an additional increase of $130,000 above the figures fixed by the county board.

In the following pages there will also be found, at the bottom of each column of assessments, beginning with 1872, a statement of the total county and state tax levied in that year. The figures given include all taxes except the town and village (or city) taxes.

ASSESSED VALUATION OF THE DIFFERENT ASSESSMENT DISTRICTS OF DOOR COUNTY, AS EQUALIZED BY THE COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS FOR THE YEARS 1861 TO 1870 INCLUSIVE, YEARS 1861, 1863, 1864, 1866 and 1868 NOT RECORDED

ASSESSED VALUATION OF THE VARIOUS ASSESSMENT DISTRICTS OF DOOR COUNTY AS EQUALIZED BY *THE COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS FOR THE YEARS 1871 TO 1880 INCLUSIVE

ASSESSED VALUATION OF THE VARIOUS ASSESSMENT DISTRICTS OF DOOR COUNTY AS EQUALIZED BY THE COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS FOR THE YEARS 1881 TO 1890

ASSESSED VALUATION OF THE VARIOUS ASSESSMENT DISTRICTS OF DOOR COUNTY AS EQUALIZED BY THE COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS FOR THE YEARS 1891 To 1900 `

ASSESSED VALUATION OF THE VARIOUS ASSESSMENT DISTRICTS OF DOOR COUNTY AS EQUALIZED BY THE COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS FOR THE YEARS 1901 To 1910 LI

ASSESSED VALUATION OF THE VARIOUS ASSESSMENT DISTRICTS OF DOOR COUNTY, AS EQUALIZED BY THE COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS FOR THE YEARS 1911 TO 1916