Sister 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 54234. The Survey maps it on the Sister Bay quadrangle. 1,148 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 620 feet above sea level.
On record in Sister 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
Jischke's Meat Marketlisted 1986
Population over time
2 figuresSister Bay grew from 876 to 1,148 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 | 876 | |
| 2020 | 1,148 | +272 (+31%) |
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.
The present settlements of Liberty Grove are largely outgrowths of the early Norwegian colony at Ephraim. The first settlers were originally members of this colony. Among them was John Thoreson; a Norwegian who settled at Little Sister Bay in 1854. He was for many years a prominent man in the town, was a political boss and had a pier over which he shipped much cordwood and other timber products. Another well known early Norwegian was Zacharias Morbek. He was a member of the original Norwegian Moravian colony which settled in Ephraim, was a man of some education and for some time held most of the town offices in the Town of Gibraltar. Later other candidates for political honors began to usurp what he considered his prerogatives. In disgust he complained that liberty was dying out in Gibraltar and in order that he might again have matters under his own hand he got a portion of Gibraltar set off in 1859 as a separate town. This he called Liberty Grove, meaning by that that liberty (the Morbek brand) had there found a home. For many years he was very successful and had the office of clerk, treasurer, assessor and justice of the peace.
Passage source: History Of Door County Wisconsin The County Beautiful, published 1917.
The Swedish settlement lying between Sister Bay and Appleport is one of the prettiest farming sections in Door County. The land is gently rolling, comparatively free from stone and apparently very fertile. The improvements are substantial and neat. Altogether this little part of the county will compare favorably with any part of the state.
Passage source: History Of Door County Wisconsin The County Beautiful, published 1917.
The history of the Swedish settlement begins with Gustav Carlson who in the fall of 1867 with a dozen other Swedes came to Ephraim to cut wood for John Anderson, a member of the Norwegian community at Ephraim. He lived within a mile of Sister Bay but at that time there was no business of any kind at Sister Bay. These thirteen Swedes the following winter all bunked in a shanty which stood on the land now owned by Charles Magnet. Gustav Carlson was far-sighted and bought a tract of land north of Sister Bay. However, he and the other twelve woodchoppers left Door County in spring and did not return for many years.
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 6 more 6 times.
Fires near this place
8 since 1998Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 8 fires within 5 miles of Sister Bay between 1998 and 2020, burning about 94 acres in total. None started naturally. 1 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 |
|---|---|
| Debris and open burning | 4 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 3 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 June 1998 | Debris and open burning | 88 acres | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 6 May 2018 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | 170 |
| 15 April 2019 | Debris and open burning | 2.0 acres | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | 132 |
| 4 February 2019 | Arson/incendiarism | 1.0 acres | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | 44 |
| 19 February 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | 64 |
| 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 |
| 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 Sister 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
11 since 1995Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Sister Bay in 11 storm reports between 1995 and 2023: 4 thunderstorm wind, 4 hail, 2 waterspout, 1 lightning. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 1997 | Lightning | Sister Bay | $1,000 | Lightning struck a business in Sister Bay, igniting a small fire. The strike also broke a water line, which may have put the fire out. |
| July 1995 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sister Bay | $1,000 | no account filed |
| July 2023 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sister Bay | - | Thunderstorm winds downed trees in Sister Bay. The time of this report is an estimate based on radar data. |
| July 2023 | Hail | Sister Bay | - | Penny size hail fell in Sister Bay. |
| October 2016 | Hail | Sister Bay | - | Hail, as large as quarter size, fell about two miles east of Sister Bay. |
| July 2015 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sister Bay | - | Thunderstorm winds downed some trees near Sister Bay. |
| June 2007 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sister Bay | - | Several trees were uprooted. |
| June 2006 | Hail | Sister Bay | - | no account filed |
| May 2002 | Hail | Sister Bay | - | no account filed |
| July 2000 | Waterspout | Sister Bay | - | no account filed |
| September 1999 | Waterspout | Sister 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ephraim | 3.3 miles | 8 | |
| North Bay | 3.5 miles | 8 | |
| Rowleys Bay | 5.1 miles | 8 | |
| Ellison Bay | 5.3 miles | 8 | |
| Fish Creek | 7.8 miles | 8 | |
| Baileys Harbor | 8.4 miles | 8 | |
| Gills Rock | 8.8 miles | 8 | |
| Northport | 10.4 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 Sister Bay | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2780659 | 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 1574209. 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.





