BlockFrom the record
One of 68 National Register listings published here for Door County · listed in 1985 · category: Building.
Sources: the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service
Hillside Hotel
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
The listing
- What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 5 buildingss as contributing to the listing.
- Address. 9980 S. Water St., Ephraim, 54211
- When was it listed? March 1985
- Category. building
- Also known as. Ephraim MRA
- Village. Ephraim village
- National Register reference number. 85000665 - 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.
The ground it stands on
8,722 wordsThe chapter on Ephraim Village in History Of Door County Wisconsin The County Beautiful, published 1917 names Ephraim. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.
The history of the Ephraim community starts down in Milwaukee in the yea 1849. At that time there was a man by the name of M. Olson from Farsund, Norway, who lived there. There was at that time no Scandinavian congregation in Milwaukee, but this Olson was a splendid singer and used to gather his countrymen together in their homes for common worship. As Mr. Olson was in sympathy with the faith and practices of the Unitas Fratrum - the United Brethren, or Moravians, as they are commonly called, he wrote to the Moravian organization in Norway to see if a minister of that faith could be found who would come to Milwaukee and take charge of the work which he had started.
Passage source: History Of Door County Wisconsin The County Beautiful, published 1917.
The organization of this first Moravian congregation in the West was solemnly effected Monday, October 22, 1849. As this is the organization of the Moravian congregation now at Ephraim a list of the original members is given below, most of whom later moved to Ephraim:
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 Ephraim Village - 8,722 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.
Fires near this property
11 since 1998Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 11 fires within 5 miles of Hillside Hotel between 1998 and 2020, burning about 97 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 | 5 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5 |
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 July 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | 324 |
| 4 July 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | 81 |
| 23 June 1998 | Debris and open burning | 88 acres | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 7 May 2019 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | 61 |
| 6 May 2018 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | 170 |
| 13 May 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | 42 |
| 22 April 2019 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | 51 |
| 15 April 2019 | Debris and open burning | 2.0 acres | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | 132 |
Mines and quarries near this property
4 within 5 milesRegional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 4 workings within 5 miles of Hillside Hotel: 3 producers, 1 past producer. 3 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken. 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 County Quarries | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Producer | ||
| Jarman Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken, Sand and Gravel, Construction | Producer | ||
| Becker Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | ||
| Josephs Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Producer |
Storms near this property
8 since 1997Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Ephraim, the town this property stands in, in 8 storm reports between 1997 and 2025: 2 hail, 2 thunderstorm wind, 1 lightning, 1 funnel cloud. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Ephraim | $431,000 | Thunderstorm winds downed and uprooted multiple trees in Ephraim. The time of this report is an estimate based on radar data. The thunderstorms produced $431,938 worth of damage and debris clean up across central and northern parts of Door County. |
| September 2014 | Flash Flood | Ephraim | $75,000 | Heavy rainfall flooded basements, resorts, and campgrounds, and damaged roads in the Sister Bay, Fish Creek, and Baileys Harbor areas. In excess of 6 inches of rain in Baileys Harbor caused nearly every home there to sustain a backup from the sewage disposal plant. Flood waters damaged documents at the Ephraim Historical Society. The flooding also washed out shoulders of several roads in the area. |
| August 2025 | Tornado (EF0) | Ephraim | - | A tornado briefly touched down near Ephraim in Peninsula State Park at 3:54 PM CDT. The most significant damage was an uprooted tree with the NWS on the low end of the damage scale due to saturated ground. The tornado crossed into Eagle Harbor as a waterspout at 3:55 pm CDT. Total path length is estimated to be 0.25 miles long, with a width of 32 yards. Peak wind estimated to be around 73 mph. |
| August 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Ephraim | - | Thunderstorm winds downed trees and power lines on highway 42 from Fish Creek to Ephraim, making the road impassable. The time of this report is an estimate based on radar. |
| October 1997 | Lightning | Ephraim | - | A second storm produced a lightning strike later in the evening, striking a 40-foot pine tree. The bolt worked its way to a nearby cottage, causing a fire which damaged the kitchen and roof. Damage amount unknown. |
| July 2009 | Funnel Cloud | Ephraim | - | no account filed |
| July 2006 | Hail | Ephraim | - | no account filed |
| July 1999 | Hail | Ephraim | - | no account filed |
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
6 within 8 milesOther 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.
| Photograph | Property | Distance | Listed |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Free Evangelical Lutheran Church-Bethania Scandinavian Evangelical Lutheran Congregation | under 500 feet | 1985 |
 | Ephraim Moravian Church | under 500 feet | 1985 |
 | Gibraltar District School No. 2 | under 500 feet | 1985 |
 | Ephraim Village Hall | 0.1 miles | 1985 |
 | Peter Peterson House | 0.2 miles | 1985 |
| Anderson Dock Historic District | 0.5 miles | 1985 |
Sources for this property
| National Archives record | The nomination case file for reference 85000665 in Record Group 79. |
| 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.
- 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.