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Clay Banks, Door County, Wisconsin 2020Photo: Aerial Photography Field Office (APFO) for NAIP, USGS; in contract with the Surdex Corporation · Public domain
–Not graded
History · Clay Banks

Clay Banks’ post office opened in 1862, and 24% of its homes were built before 1940

Below: maps from 1984 on and old-book passages.

1862first post office
0on the National Register
24%homes built before 1940
1famous people
Add an old photoShare a memory
Photo: Aerial Photography Field Office (APFO) for NAIP, USGS; in contract with the Surdex Corporation · Public domain
Quick answers

How Clay Banks began

When was Clay Banks founded?

1862

The Clay Banks post office opened in 1862, the earliest record of the town by name. Two smaller post offices, Salona (1881) and Vignes (1891), opened inside today’s town and later closed.

2020 census: 385164 years
Founding year: the first Clay Banks post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).

What stands out about Clay Banks’ past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Clay Banks are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.Lost villages2 post offices opened and closed inside today’s Clay Banks, and 2 old place names are still on the map.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Clay Banks’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Clay Banks’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
Share a family photoSign in to add one+10
Places that used to be

Lost post offices, old corners, places now gone and burying grounds

Clay Banks had its own post office from 1862 to 1903. Two other post offices opened and closed inside today’s town.

Clay Banks
1862–1903
Salona
1881–1904
Vignes
1891–1904
18601940today
Hamlets and corners on the map
SalonaVignes
Gone or out of use
Foscoro Airportairport
1cemetery inside Clay Banks
Claybanks

US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).

The story so far

Clay Banks, in brief

Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Clay Banks yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.

Clay Banks is a town in Door County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 385 at the 2020 census. The unincorporated communities of Salona and Vignes are located in the town.

Its first post office opened in 1862. Its population held steady between the last two censuses: 382 in 2010, 385 in 2020.

Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.

From the old history books

What they wrote about Clay Banks in 1881

Passages that mention Clay Banks, cut from the printed page as they were published.

Clay Banks was set off of Forestville township, at the February meeting of the County Board, 1859. The first town meeting was held on the first Tuesday in April, 1859, at Prescott's boarding house.
History of Door county, Wisconsin, together with biographies of nearly seven hundred families, and mention of 4,000 persons ..1881 · page 65Read the page →
Read the text

Clay Banks was set off of Forestville township, at the February meeting of the County Board, 1859. The first town meeting was held on the first Tuesday in April, 1859, at Prescott's boarding house.

Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.

Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.

Timeline

Clay Banks, 1862 to 1984

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 19th century
  2. 1862Post officeThe Clay Banks post office opens
  3. 1881Post officeThe Salona post office opens
  4. 1882Born hereConrad P. Olson is born here
  5. 1891Post officeThe Vignes post office opens
  6. 20th century
  7. 1903Post officeThe Clay Banks post office closes
  8. 1904Post officeThe Salona post office closes
  9. 1904Post officeThe Vignes post office closes
  10. 1984On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
By decade

No old photos in the archives yet

Weddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.

Be the first to add onePhotograph a print flat, in daylight, no flash.
Add from your album
On the map

Clay Banks on the map in 1984

The U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Clay Banks.

Clay Banks on the 1984 USGS map1984Sturgeon Bay sheet · 1:100,000

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Clay Banks.

Stories next door

History across the town line

Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.

Sturgeon Bay1 historic placenot graded: under 1,000 residents or part of its townForestvilleIts storyB−AhnapeeIts storynot graded: under 1,000 residents or part of its town

Questions about Clay Banks’ history

What year was Clay Banks founded?

The Clay Banks post office opened in 1862, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
Start a conversation
Sources

Where this page comes from

Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →

From Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.