Photograph of Bass Island Brownstone Company Quarry — Photograph by Royalbroil, CC BY-SA 3.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Bass Island Brownstone Company Quarry (Boundary Increase)

Built in 1868. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016.

From the record

“The Bass Island Brownstone Company Quarry, also known as the Basswood Island Quarry, on Basswood Island in Lake Superior was operational from 1868 to 1893. The brownstone was first used for construction of the second Milwaukee County Courthouse, now demolished.”
Wikipedia article Bass Island Brownstone Company Quarry, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 32 National Register listings published here for Ashland County · listed in 2016 · category: Site · built in 1868.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

Address. Bass Island, LaPointe
When was it listed? May 2016
Category. site
When was it built? 1868
National Register reference number. 16000241 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.

Fires near this property

54 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 54 fires within 5 miles of Bass Island Brownstone Company Quarry (Boundary Increase) between 1992 and 2020, burning about 36 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 3 were 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	20
Equipment and vehicle use	17
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	5
Arson/incendiarism	3
Smoking	3
Recreation and ceremony	2
Natural	1
Other causes	1
Misuse of fire by a minor	1
Power generation/transmission/distribution	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
2 September 2007	Natural	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
13 September 2012	Power generation/transmission/distribution	under an acre	Great Lakes Agency	BLUEBERRY RD POWERLI
5 August 1992	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
26 August 2001	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
23 August 2008	Arson/incendiarism	3.1 acres	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
16 August 2008	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
7 July 2006	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
7 July 2006	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named

Every fire recorded in Ashland County

Mines and quarries near this property

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Bass Island Brownstone Company Quarry (Boundary Increase): 1 past producer, 1 occurrence. None of them still produces. 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
	F. L. Wolfe Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
	Red Cliff Gravel Deposit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Occurrence

Every working recorded in Ashland County

Map coverage status

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

4 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.

Property	Distance	Listed
Bass Island Brownstone Company Quarry	under 500 feet	1978
La Pointe Light Station	4.0 miles	1983
La Pointe Indian Cemetery	4.3 miles	1977
Coole Park Manor	4.8 miles	2005

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 16000241 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Ashland County	All 32 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

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.