Rowleys 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. It stands on Mink River. The Survey maps it on the Sister Bay quadrangle.
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 Sister Bay quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1981 USGS Marinette quadrangle1:100000
- 1982 USGS Sister 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.
At Rowleys Bay, Daniel H. Rice started to get out cedar about 1857. He gave up the business soon which was later taken up by Osborne, Coxwell & Co. from Racine. They shipped a large amount of timber until 1876 when the lands, about four thousand acres, were bought by S. A. Rogers. He built a large mill there which is still in operation and is one of the oldest mills in the county.
Passage source: History Of Door County Wisconsin The County Beautiful, published 1917.
Rowleys Bay, or rather Mink River, a sluggish stream emptying into it, bears evidence of having been a favorite camping place for Indians. Many relics and evidences of village sites have been found there. When D. H. Rice settled there in 1857 he found a large cross planted near the path which led across the peninsula at this point and he reported that the Indians showed adoration for the cross. This cross may signify that here had been a chapel established by the early French Jesuits or it may be the survival of a memento to mark the visit of a Jesuit missionary.
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.
Fires near this place
7 since 1993Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 7 fires within 5 miles of Rowleys 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 Rowleys 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
1 since 2025Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Rowleys Bay in 1 storm report in 2025: 1 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 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Rowleys Bay | - | Thunderstorm winds produced widespread tree damage in Newport State Park. The time of this report is an estimate based on radar data. |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ellison Bay | 3.1 miles | 8 | |
| Gills Rock | 4.9 miles | 8 | |
| Sister Bay | 5.1 miles | 8 | |
| North Bay | 5.7 miles | 8 | |
| Northport | 5.8 miles | 10 | |
| Ephraim | 8.3 miles | 8 | |
| Detroit Harbor | 11.0 miles | 10 | |
| Baileys Harbor | 11.7 miles | 8 |
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 Rowleys Bay | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q7372250 | 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 1572692. 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.





