By Dan Patrinos
A landmark exhibition tower on Sturgeon Bay’s working waterfront promises to celebrate the rich maritime history of the Great Lakes and Door County where the shipbuilding industry accounts for the largest number of jobs in the area.
The Door County Maritime Museum is expanding its main location in Sturgeon Bay, with the Jim Kress Maritime Lighthouse Tower. Three floors of exhibits will open to the public in May. Three more exhibit floors will open in October, and the final installation of exhibits on three more levels will be completed in May 2022.
Shipbuilding is prominent in Door County’s history. During World War II, area companies built ships for the war effort. Today, some of the newest U.S. Navy ships, commercial fishing vessels, passenger ferries and world-class luxury yachts have been built in the area. The self-unloading vessel and container shipping were invented there. Ships from the Great Lakes fleet winter in Sturgeon Bay.
Wisconsin’s rich nautical heritage will be portrayed in themed segments in the Jim Kress Maritime Lighthouse Tower, starting with a first floor theater. Touring visitors will then take an elevator to the top of the building, making their way down through each floor of exhibits.
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Sam Perlman, deputy director and development manager of the Museum, said it was hoped that each floor would provide a “wow” experience and an “aha” moment of learning. He said a thorough tour of the entire building could take up to two hours or more.
Based on a description provided by the Museum, the educational, interactive exhibit themes for each floor will include:
● 1st floor – A theater, where visitors will be given an overall introduction to Door County’s maritime history.
● 10th floor – Using interactive exhibits of Sturgeon Bay’s working waterfront, visitors will see what the area looks like today and how the port appeared decades ago when sailing schooners and steamships dotted the water like trucks on a modern highway. The Baumgartner outdoor rooftop deck will be available to visitors, weather permitting, for panoramic views of the waterfront.
● 9th floor – The natural history and geology of the county’s rocky peninsula will be depicted, highlighting its connection to the Niagara Escarpment. The escarpment was formed when glaciers more than a mile thick gouged out soft shale and left harder dolomite exposed. These glaciers gave shape to the Great Lakes.
● 8th floor – Exhibits on Native Americans and early settlers, to today’s tourist economy, will be shown. Native American and European settlers are the most recent people to come to Door County in the past few centuries. However, archaeological evidence suggests the area has been continuously inhabited since 10,000 BC. Early settlements date back 2,000 years; the dominant Native Americans in the region were the Potawatomi. The 19th and early 20th centuries saw the immigration and settlement of pioneers, mariners, fishermen, loggers and farmers.
● 7th floor – Maritime navigation, from dugout canoes to modern 1,000-foot freighters, has always been a challenge. An interactive chart table, an explanation of range lights, lighthouses, and sextants will be included in the exhibit.
● 6th floor – Maritime commerce will be shown, starting with the early French fur trade. Ships ferried lumber from Wisconsin’s forests to eastern markets, and since the 1860s natural resources mined in the state have been transported to distant ports and mills by Great Lakes freighters. Exhibits will feature the 1.3-mile-long Sturgeon Bay Shipping Canal that connects the Bay of Green Bay to Lake Michigan, explaining why and how it was built and its impact today.
● 5th floor – The history of shipbuilding in Door County will be presented. The exhibit will focus on the work of Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding, the county’s largest employer. The exhibit will include an interactive, moveable touchscreen that will give users the ability to view detailed engineering of each section of a freighter and learn what goes into building these mammoth vessels.
● 4th floor – Recreational boating will be exhibited on this floor, and include small craft and luxury yachts, and sail, power and paddle boats. A highlight will be an interactive boating skills virtual trainer, where children can virtually drive through the Sturgeon Bay canal.
● 3rd floor – The evolution and role of commercial and recreational fishing will be shown. The various species in the waters of Door County, both natural and invasive, will be represented. The exhibit will include a large touchscreen that will feature projections of native fish species swimming by. When a user touches the fish on-screen, a dialog box will open, providing detailed information about the fish and its place in the food chain. A similar projection of a boat will allow the visitor to tap the image to learn more about commercial and recreational vessels.
● 2nd floor – Shipwrecks in the waters of Door County will be depicted. The science of underwater exploration, the impact of invasive species, and how the cold water of Lake Michigan preserves these wrecks will be explored in exhibits. There are more than 275 known shipwrecks off Door County.
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Established in 1969, the Museum has a repository of artifacts, photos, oral histories and other information relating to the nautical history of Door County and the Great Lakes. Construction of the 118-foot tower was completed in December 2020.
More than 285 individual, family, corporate and foundation donors have contributed a total of $5.718 million to the $7 million construction capital campaign, Perlman said. That includes $1 million from the George F. Kress Foundation and a $250,000 Community Development Investment grant from Wisconsin’s Economic Development Corporation.
The Museum has received more than $450,000 in individual pledges and foundation grants to cover the estimated $2 million cost for exhibits, he said. “We have an additional $650,000 in pending grant and foundation applications, combined with a concerted marketing and development program,” Perlman said.
Southern Custom Exhibits of Anniston, Alabama, is the general exhibit contractor. Perlman said the firm estimates that the total cost for the last phase of exhibits will be $609,192. The Museum is seeking a $400,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. That grant, combined with a $200,000 grant already secured from a local private foundation, would close the funding gap, Perlman said.
The project team includes Kevin Osgood, museum executive director, Rhys Kuzdas, curator and exhibit manager, as well as Perlman.
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Photo on this page: The Jim Kress Maritime Lighthouse Tower topped by the Baumgartner outdoor rooftop deck overlooks a busy harbor. The tower is part of the Door County Maritime Museum in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. Credit: Door County Maritime Museum
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Dan Patrinos is a retired journalist. He is a member of the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society and lives in Milwaukee.
