September 16-17, 2017 Saturday & Sunday
The City of Sturgeon Bay has approximately 10,000 residents and is located at the natural end of Sturgeon Bay and the beginning of the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal. Settled in 1850 its first industry was timber, by 1862 it had 200 residents and three sawmills. Later it became a center for stone quarrying and then, after the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal was opened in 1890, Sturgeon Bay became a center of maritime traffic and shipbuilding. In the late 1940’s it became part of the World War II Emergency Shipbuilding Program building cargo ships to carry troops and material to foreign theatres. At the peak of World War II the shipbuilders in this area were launching a new ship every five days. Today Sturgeon Bay has two shipbuilders, Palmer Johnson, which builds luxury yachts, and Bay Shipbuilding, which makes double-hulled oil barges to replace such single-hulled carriers like the Exxon Valdez.
Today Sturgeon Bay is a thriving tourist town and houses both the Door County Maritime Museum and Door County Historical Museum. The Maritime Museum includes exhibits on lighthouses, ships, shipwrecks, and shipbuilding plus a guided tour of the John Purves, an immaculately restored 1919 Great Lakes tugboat.
CG-41410, a 41-foot utility boat, conducted over 350,000 sorties and saved over $400 million in property and saved over 41,800 lives.
The historical museum has an eclectic collection of items that tell the story of the settlement of the county. The first exhibit is an extraordinary Wildlife Diorama by Mike Orthober which encompasses the four seasons and features a life-sized beech tree along with native species including over 100 birds, white-tailed deer, bear, badger, etc.
The original Door County Library, located in the City of Sturgeon Bay, was one of the 2,509 Carnegie libraries built between 1883 and 1929 with money donated by Scottish businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. The first Carnegie library was built in Dunfermine, Scotland, Carnegie’s hometown.
The City of Sturgeon Bay Solar Flair Project is an eye-catching photovoltaic system whose sculptures are intended to add beauty and function in public locations, increasing public awareness of the need for renewable energy and helping to bring solar into the mainstream.
We ended the weekend by enjoying live music on the bay.
