EARLY DAYS IN SISTER BAY
First there were Indians: certainly Potawatomies, probably others, at least for brief periods as tribes migrated back and forth to Canada. Some 200 sites of Indian habitation, many of which were temporary camps, have been identified in Door County.

In the 1600's came white explorers, led by Jean Nicolet in 1643. The great Jesuit explorer, Jacques Marquette, visited the Door peninsula in 1673, as did Robert LaSalle (1697) and Antoine Cadillac (1718).

Sister Bay was given its name, at least indirectly, by Increase Claflin, one of the earliest permanent settlers of the peninsula. Claflin named the two small islands which stand sentinel outside the L-shaped harbor, and give their name to the bay and the village. He called them The Sisters, for from the waters of Green Bay they are much alike. Soon the body of water which they sheltered was called Sister Bay, and, when settlers came, many of them by water, they adopted the name for the new settlement.

Who were the settlers? The first of them, in 1757-59, were Scandinavians: John Thoreson (who built a wharf, a store and a blacksmith shop on Little Sister Bay, just south of the present Village), Ingebret Tergeson, the first to settle permanently in Sister Bay, and James Hanson and Byron Aslagson.

A NEW START--AND DISASTERS
On April 23, 1912, the Village was formally founded as a separate political entity. The list of founding Trustees included names still prominent in the Village: Erickson, Bunda, Kellstrom, Koessl, Waller, Jischke, Smith, Logerquist and Pahl.

If 1912 was a red letter year for Sister Bay, it might also have been the end, for the year was one of unparalleled disaster. A fire broke out in the Louis Lerner store during a wind storm and, wind-driven, spread throughout the Village center. Six buildings were lost, including two stores owned by members of the Bunda family, the Henry Pleck hotel, and a residence owned by Andrew Roeser: almost the whole of the commercial center.

An indication of the difference between then and now is the notation in a Village history that several other buildings were saved by a bucket brigade manned by the entire population, who were summoned by a bell. But all were re-built or replaced in other locations in the Village.

The same year the peninsula was struck by drought, by a crop-destroying hail storm, and by a plague of grasshoppers. But neither fire or natural disasters were able to put a period to Sister Bay.

Today Sister Bay is the most populous of the four Villages in Door County, with just under 900 full-time residents. Its "permanent" seasonal population (folks who come to Sister Bay for the whole of the Summer season each year) and vacationers probably triple or quadruple that number.

TODAY
The Village now operates a handsome marina, one of only two municipal water utilities in Door County (Sturgeon Bay, with a population of nearly 10,000, is the other), a waste water treatment facility which also serves a large area of surrounding communities, a fire department (jointly with the Town of Liberty Grove), and the northern branch of the Door County Library.

The Village employs seven full-time workers and three part-timers.

Sister Bay, in company with the Town of Liberty Grove, completed a major building project in 2002: a new library . The new structure is some five times larger than the well-loved, but tiny building on the lake front. The new library is located on Mill Road, adjacent to the present Sister Bay Fire Station.

Preliminary work on two more major projects began in 2002. The first is a new fire station, part of a ten year fire-safety plan. The new fire station, which will be located on Park Lane, just a few hundred yards from the existing station, will accommodate modem trucks with up-to-date fire fighting technology and pumping capacity. Door County Emergency Medical Services, which shares quarters with the fire department in the existing building, has been invited to share in the new facility.

A final major project, a community sports complex, to be located on Woodcrest Road, was completed in 2003. The new complex houses the tennis courts and ice skating rinks that were displaced by the new fire station. Relocation of the existing soft ball field to the new site is scheduled for 2004. Future development of the sports complex will include a soccer field and a new hard-ball field to replace the existing one on Highland Road, thus bringing all the Village athletic facilities together.

The history of Sister Bay continues to unfold; handsome new buildings, modem facilities. Some things are permanent: the lake, the quiet residential neighborhoods, the orchards, the friendly, small town atmosphere, the sense of quiet well-being.

The material for this brief history was drawn from five sources:

-Marvin Lotz, Discovering Door County's Past, Holly
House Press, Fish Creek, Wisconsin, 1994.

-Joseph W. Zurawski, Images of America, Sister Bay,
Wisconsin, Arcadia Press, Chicago, 2000.

-Sister Bay, Wisconsin Golden Jubilee, 1912-1962.

-State of Wisconsin Blue Book, 2001-2002.

-Door County Official Directory, 2000-2001.