Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.
From the record
“Christina Nilsson was a schooner that sank in Lake Michigan off Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin, on October 23, 1884. In 2003, a shipwreck site purporting to be that of this ship was added to the National Register of Historic Places.”
Wikipedia article Christina Nilsson (shipwreck), CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 68 National Register listings published here for Door County · listed in 2003 · category: Site.
Also known as. Great Lakes Shipwreck Sites of Wisconsin MPS
Town. Baileys Harbor town
National Register reference number.03000668- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Baileys Harbor enjoys the distinction of being the first place in Door County that was selected for a village site. Not only this, but it was officially selected as the county seat several years before Door County's actual organization was effected. The genesis of this early Baileys Harbor boom is as follows:
Elated. with his discovery Captain Bailey took with him several cords of building stone and firewood and proceeded on his way to Milwaukee. Here he gave such an enthusiastic account of the harbor he had discovered that among other captains of the line "Baileys Harbor" at once became a famous place. The owner of the line, Mr. Alanson Sweet, also became very much interested in the samples of stone and wood that Captain Bailey had brought with him. Mr. Sweet was doing an extensive business in the forwarding and commission business and owned about a dozen large vessels. These plied between Milwaukee and Buffalo. On the way down there were always large cargoes of grain to be carried but on the way up the freight was scant and uncertain, consisting chiefly of salt and immigrants.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 6 fires within 5 miles of CHRISTINA NILSSON (shipwreck)
between 1998 and 2020, burning about 89 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
Debris and open burning
4
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
2
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
3 workings within 5 miles of CHRISTINA NILSSON (shipwreck): 2 producers, 1 past producer.
2 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.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Baileys Harbor, the town this property stands in, in 11 storm reports between 1998 and 2025: 7 hail, 4 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.
Thunderstorm winds produced widespread tree damage across Cana Island. This tree damage temporarily stranded campers on the island as the roads were inaccessible due to trees blocking the roads. The time of this report is an estimate based on radar data.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
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.
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