Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.
From the record
“Out of the five Great Lakes, Lake Michigan, the only one entirely within the borders of the United States, contains the largest number of shipwrecks, thanks to its past as a major navigational artery. Out of the known shipwrecks in the lake, 69 of them are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, within the waters of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Indiana.”
Wikipedia article List of shipwrecks in Lake Michigan, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 68 National Register listings published here for Door County · listed in 2007 · category: Site.
Also known as. Great Lakes Shipwreck Sites of Wisconsin MPS
City. Sturgeon Bay city
National Register reference number.07001218- 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.
Sturgeon Bay seems to have been a center for human intercourse long before white men came here and began to do business. The remains of several Indian villages have been discovered in or near Sturgeon Bay which show that it had a large population hundreds of years ago. One of these villages was located on the property of the "Cove" summer resort about three hundred feet south of the boat landing. Another was across the bay at Circle Ridge on block 5. A great many fine relics have been unearthed here. Another village site has been found on block 8 of Wagener's second addition to Sturgeon Bay, just north of the city. Two large village sites are also found at Little Harbor.
The Indians presumably found this a convenient place of habitation because of its proximity to the waters of both Lake Michigan and Green Bay. When the first settlers came they found a well trodden path leading from the head of Sturgeon Bay to Lake Michigan, just north of the present canal, over which the Indians had portaged their canoes for centuries.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 12 fires within 5 miles of JOYS (Shipwreck)
between 2018 and 2020, burning about 6 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
6
Debris and open burning
4
Smoking
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
14 workings within 5 miles of JOYS (Shipwreck): 5 past producers, 5 producers, 3 unknowns, 1 plant.
6 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Limestone, Dimension, Stone. 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
Sturgeon Bay, the town this property stands in, in 54 storm reports between 1994 and 2023: 32 thunderstorm wind, 14 hail, 3 lightning, 3 funnel cloud.
The reports record 5 injuries. 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.
Lightning struck a tree, followed the copper in the underground gas propane line to a house, and ignited the wooden support holding up a pipe in the basement.
Thunderstorm winds downed trees and power lines in Sturgeon Bay, Baileys Harbor, Fish Creek and Sister Bay. The time of this report was estimated for Sturgeon Bay 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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