Alexander Noble House

Built in 1875 (Greek Revival architecture). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.

From the record

“The Alexander Noble House, built in 1875, is a historic Greek Revival farmhouse located in Fish Creek, Door County, Wisconsin on Wisconsin Highway 42. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 23, 1996.”
Wikipedia article Alexander Noble House, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 68 National Register listings published here for Door County · listed in 1996 · category: Building · built in 1875, Greek Revival architecture.

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.
Listed as. Noble, Alexander, House - the National Register files a house under its owner's surname.
Address. 4167 WI 42, Fish Creek, 54212
When was it listed? February 1996
Category. building
Town. Gibraltar town
When was it built? 1875
Architectural style. Greek Revival architecture
National Register reference number. 96000159 - 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

4,644 words

The chapter on Gibraltar Town in History Of Door County Wisconsin The County Beautiful, published 1917 names Fish Creek. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.

Fish Creek was so named by Increase Claflin who settled there, as has been stated, in 1842. For a few years he and his family lived here in solitude, the only one on the peninsula north of Sturgeon Bay. In 1847 he was joined by Van Renssa- Jaer Marshall who with his two sons, William and Van Renssalaer Marshall, moved up from the Bay Settlement near Green Bay in 1847. The elder Marshall froze to death in November, 1862. He was returning from Ephraim to Fish Creek by boat and as night drew on he for some unknown reason anchored at Eagle Island which was then deserted. He wrapped up in his sail and laid down in his boat to sleep. During the night it turned very cold and the old man did not again wake up. There were no other settlers until Asa Thorp came a few years later and opened up the country by his pier.

Passage source: History Of Door County Wisconsin The County Beautiful, published 1917.

Among the earliest to join the little settlement at Fish Creek, mostly as woodchoppers, were John and Stephen Norton. They came in 1857. In those days no saws were used in making cordwood. Yet some of these woodchoppers were able to put up three to four cords of wood per day with an axe. John and Steve Norton were great choppers, one winter putting up no less than 400 cords between them. The same year also came John Brown, the later sage of Fish Creek, Horace Poppleton, Michael F. Kalmbach and John Torrey. The latter had a house on the hill east of Fish Creek later known as the Barringer farm. He was a cooper. So were also Poppleton and Brown.

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 Gibraltar Town - 4,644 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Fires near this property

5 since 2018

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 5 fires within 5 miles of Alexander Noble House between 2018 and 2020, burning about 5 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	3
Debris and open burning	2

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
7 May 2019	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	61
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

Every fire recorded in Door 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 Alexander Noble House: 2 producers. All of them still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, 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
	Jarman Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken, Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
	Door County Quarries	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer

Every working recorded in Door County

Storms near this property

10 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Fish Creek, the town this property stands in, in 10 storm reports between 1998 and 2024: 6 thunderstorm wind, 3 hail, 1 lightning. The reports record 1 injury. 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
September 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Fish Creek	1 hurt	no account filed
July 2010	Lightning	Fish Creek	$433,700	Lightning struck a home in Fish Creek around 2:30 pm CST. Every fire department in Door County, except Washington Island, helped fight the fire but the house and attached three-stall garage were a total loss. Three vintage automobiles were also destroyed by the fire.
May 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Fish Creek	-	Thunderstorm winds downed trees in Fish Creek. The time of this report is an estimate based on radar data.
September 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Fish Creek	-	Thunderstorm winds downed trees in Peninsula State Park. The time of this event is an estimate based on radar data.
April 2020	Hail	Fish Creek	-	Penny size hail fell in Fish Creek.
July 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Fish Creek	-	Thunderstorm winds downed trees near Fish Creek. The time of this report is an estimate based on radar data.
August 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Fish Creek	-	A thunderstorm produced a measured wind gust to 59 mph.
July 2012	Hail	Fish Creek	-	Quarter size hail fell at Fish Creek.
September 1998	Hail	Fish Creek	-	no account filed
September 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Fish Creek	-	no account filed

Every storm 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

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.

Property	Distance	Listed
Vorous General Store	under 500 feet	1997
Freeman and Jesse Thorp House and Cottages	0.1 miles	1997
Welcker's Resort Historic District	0.1 miles	1997
Church of the Atonement	0.1 miles	1985
HANOVER (schooner) Shipwreck	1.7 miles	2015
Eagle Bluff Lighthouse	2.3 miles	1970

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 96000159 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.
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.