Photograph of Pottawatomie Light — Photograph by Unknown, Public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Pottawatomie Lighthouse

Built in 1836. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

From the record

“Pottawatomie Lighthouse, also known as the Rock Island Light, is a lighthouse in Rock Island State Park, on Rock Island in Door County, Wisconsin. Lit in 1836, it is the oldest light station in Wisconsin and on Lake Michigan.”
Wikipedia article Pottawatomie Light, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 68 National Register listings published here for Door County · listed in 1979 · category: Building · built in 1836.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. NW Rock Island, Washington Island, 54246
When was it listed? April 1979
Category. building
Town. Washington town
When was it built? 1836
National Register reference number. 79000074 - 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.

Fires near this property

2 since 2020

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 2 fires within 5 miles of Pottawatomie Lighthouse in 2020, burning about 22 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	1
Misuse of fire by a minor	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 April 2020	Misuse of fire by a minor	18 acres	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	20684
15 April 2020	Debris and open burning	4.0 acres	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	20762

Every fire recorded in Door 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

3 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
Thordarson Estate Historic District	1.2 miles	1985
Rock Island Historic District	1.4 miles	1972
Water Tower	1.5 miles	1985

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 79000074 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Door County	All 68 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.