Ellison Bay, Wisconsin
8 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1982. It stands in Liberty Grove town. It lies in ZIP code area 54210. The Survey maps it on the Ellison Bay quadrangle. 249 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 594 feet above sea level.
On record in Ellison Bay
Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.
On the National Register 1 record
Clearing, Thelisted 1974
Population over time
2 figuresEllison Bay grew from 165 to 249 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 165 | |
| 2020 | 249 | +84 (+51%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
6 surveys from 8 printed sheetsMatched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.
- 1954 USGS Escanaba quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1957 USGS Escanaba quadrangle1:250000
- 1958 USGS Escanaba quadrangle1:250000
- 1960 USGS Ellison Bay quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1981 USGS Marinette quadrangle1:100000
- 1982 USGS Ellison Bay quadrangle1:24000
In the county-history sources
4,444 words on this townshipHistory Of Door County Wisconsin The County Beautiful, published 1917 names this settlement in its chapter on Liberty Grove Town. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.
One morning in February, 1877, Avle Simonson and his son, Alfred, sailed from Ellison Bay in their fishing boat with a passenger for Detroit Harbor. The passenger was Miss Dora Higgins (later Mrs. Albert Kalmbach) who was going to Washington Island to teach school. They arrived at Detroit Harbor about noon and as the wind was fair they started immediately for their home. They had not gone far, however, before a blinding snowstorm out of the northwest descended upon them, shutting out all vision except immediately around the boat.
Passage source: History Of Door County Wisconsin The County Beautiful, published 1917.
Their friends in Ellison Bay waited in vain for the return of the fishermen. The wind which had been from the northeast had changed to the northwest but was still favorable for a speedy return providing no obstacles were encountered. In "the Door," however, where the drifting ice floes from many directions met to jostle each other, no man could rely on the wind or the ice for a safe return. Several days went by and the two fishermen were finally given up as lost.
Passage source: History Of Door County Wisconsin The County Beautiful, published 1917.
The chief factor in the promotion of the settlement of the northern part of Liberty Grove was a Dane by the name of John Ellison (Eliasen). After him is named Ellison Bay. He came to Ephraim in 1854 and was for many years a member of the Ephraim community. At Ephraim he owned an exceedingly poor and stony forty of land and made but little progress. By 1870, however, he must have accumulated some means as we then find him at Ellison Bay preparing to build a large pier and systematically advertising in the newspapers for settlers.
Passage source: History Of Door County Wisconsin The County Beautiful, published 1917.
Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.
Read the whole chapter on Liberty Grove Town - it names this place 1 more 1 time.
Fires near this place
7 since 1993Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 7 fires within 5 miles of Ellison Bay between 1993 and 2020, burning about 4 acres in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Reported cause | Fires |
|---|---|
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 3 |
| Debris and open burning | 3 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 1 |
The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.
| Date | Cause | Size | Reported by | Name on the report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 August 2018 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | 379 |
| 5 July 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | 268 |
| 7 May 2018 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | 172 |
| 2 December 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | 473 |
| 19 December 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | 493 |
| 21 November 1993 | Recreation and ceremony | under an acre | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 7 January 2018 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | 10 |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Mines and quarries near this place
1 within 5 milesRegional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Ellison Bay: 1 producer. All of them still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Where | Site | Commodity | Status | Recorded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Door Pit North | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Producer |
Storms near this place
3 since 2002Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Ellison Bay in 3 storm reports between 2002 and 2017: 3 thunderstorm wind. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 2015 | Thunderstorm Wind | Ellison Bay | $6,000 | Thunderstorm winds downed a few trees and power lines near Ellison Bay. |
| July 2017 | Thunderstorm Wind | Ellison Bay | - | Thunderstorm winds downed trees across the road on Highway 42 and Mink River Road, in Ellison Bay. The time of this report was estimated based on radar data. |
| July 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Ellison Bay | - | no account filed |
Nearest settlements
The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.
| Map | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rowleys Bay | 3.1 miles | 8 | |
| Gills Rock | 3.6 miles | 8 | |
| Sister Bay | 5.3 miles | 8 | |
| Northport | 5.5 miles | 10 | |
| North Bay | 7.5 miles | 8 | |
| Ephraim | 8.5 miles | 8 | |
| Detroit Harbor | 10.3 miles | 10 | |
| Washington | 12.2 miles | 10 |
Elsewhere
Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.
| Wikipedia article on Ellison Bay | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q5366047 | The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0). |
Provenance
This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 1564544. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.





