Door County is the easternmost county in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Its population was 30,066 at the 2020 census. Its county seat and largest city is Sturgeon Bay, with a population of 9,646.
Door County is named after the strait between the Door Peninsula and Washington Island. This dangerous passage, known as Death's Door, contains shipwrecks and was known to Native Americans and early French explorers. The county was created in 1851 and organized in 1861.
Nicknamed the "Cape Cod of the Midwest," Door County is a popular Upper Midwest vacation destination. Tourism is a major contributor to Door County's economy. It is Wisconsin's forty-fourth largest county in population, but it is the eighth largest in terms of economic impact from tourism (over $600 million in 2023). The county is considered a high-recreation retirement destination by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
History
Native Americans and French
Door County's name came from Porte des Morts ("Death's Door"), the passage between the tip of Door Peninsula and Washington Island. The name "Death's Door" came from Native American tales, heard by early French explorers and published in greatly embellished form by Hjalmar Holand, which described a failed raid by the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) tribe to capture Washington Island from the rival Potawatomi tribe in the early 1600s. It has become associated with shipwrecks within the passage. The earliest known written reference to the legend is from , who termed the peninsula "Cap a la Mort" in 1728.
Development
thumb|Graves of Increase Claflin and family
The 19th and 20th centuries saw the immigration and settlement of pioneers, mariners, fishermen, loggers, and farmers. The first white settler was Increase Claflin. In 1851, Door County was separated from what had been Brown County. Also in 1854 the first post office in the county opened, on Washington Island. In the 19th century, a fairly large-scale immigration of Belgian Walloons populated a small region in the southern portion of the county, including the area designated as the Namur Historic District. They built small roadside votive chapels, some still in use today, and brought other traditions over from Europe such as the Kermiss harvest festival.
Shortly after the 1831 Treaty of Washington, the federal government surveyed what is now Door County to determine the value of the timber and to divide up parcels for eventual sale. Following the treaty, land in what is now the county was sold or granted to private citizens.
At the time the Homestead Act of 1862 was passed, most of the county's nearly 2,000 farmers were squatters earning most of their revenue from lumber and wood products. The remaining portion of the population consisted of about 1,000 fishermen and their families. Out of the total population of 2,948 people, 170 fought in the Civil War.
thumb|Excursion party on the Sailor Boy; postmarked 1906 in Sturgeon Bay. The Sailor Boy and other small steamboats stopped at Menominee to take on rail passengers. Since rail service was faster, tourists from Chicago would first take a northbound train in order to board steamboats bound for resort communities.
When the 1871 Peshtigo fire burned the town of Williamsonville, fifty-nine people were killed. The area of this disaster is now Tornado Memorial County Park, named for a fire whirl which occurred there. Altogether, 128 people in the county perished in the Peshtigo fire.
In 1885 or 1886, what is now the Coast Guard Station was established at Sturgeon Bay. The small, seasonally open station on Washington Island was established in 1902.
Tourism
thumb|This 1924 postcard produced by [[Curt Teich|Curt Teich & Company reads, "Cedar Glen, one of the many free tourists' camp sites in Peninsula State Park, Door County Wisconsin."]]
Even after the Ahnapee and Western extended service to Sturgeon Bay in 1894, many tourists continued taking the railroad to Menominee, Michigan to embark on steamships bound for communities in Door County. This route over Green Bay bypassed poor road conditions in the northern part of the county, which persisted until the early 1920s. Only after crushed stone highways were built did motor and horse-drawn coaches become popular for transportation between Sturgeon Bay and the northern part of the peninsula. a figure which grew to about 125,000 in 1920, 1 million in 1969, 1.25 million in 1978, and 1.9 million in 1995.
In 1913, The Old Rugged Cross was first sung at the Friends Church in Sturgeon Bay as a duet by two traveling preachers.
In 2004, the county began a sister cities relationship with Jingdezhen in southeastern China.
Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (80%) is water. It is the largest county in Wisconsin by total area. The county has of shoreline.
The county covers the majority of the Door Peninsula. With the completion of the Sturgeon Bay Shipping Canal in 1881, the northern half of the peninsula became an artificial island. This canal is believed to have somehow "caused a wonderful increase in the quantity of fish" in nearby waters and also caused a reduction in the sturgeon population in the bay due to changes in the aquatic habitat. The 45th parallel north bisects the "island", and this is commemorated by Meridian County Park.
Climate
The county has a humid continental climate (classified as Dfb in Köppen) with warm summers and cold snowy winters. Data from the Peninsular Agricultural Research Station north of the city of Sturgeon Bay gives average monthly temperatures ranging from in the summer down to in the winter. The moderating effects of nearby bodies of water reduce the likelihood of damaging late spring freezes. Late spring freezes are less likely to occur than in nearby areas, and when they do occur, they tend not to be as severe.