Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Its Register listing is the Sturgeon Bay Canal Lighthouse. Below: 4 old photos and papers, maps from 1885 on, and the census since 1880.
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Sturgeon Bay’s history is told.
Fire insurance maps drew every building, what it was made of and what it was used for, so insurers could price the risk of fire. Pick a year, then a sheet.
1885Sheet 1 of 4Sanborn Map Company, via the Library of Congress. Editions published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
From Wikipedia’s history of Sturgeon Bay.
The area was originally inhabited by the Ho-Chunk and Menominee. The town is known in the Menominee language as Namāēw-Wīhkit, or "bay of the sturgeon". The Menominee ceded this territory to the United States in the 1831 Treaty of Washington. After that, the area was available for white settlement.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Passages that mention Sturgeon Bay, cut from the printed page as they were published.
few years, and then he retired from active business, and returned to Ohio, to enjoy the fruits of his younger-day labors. I believe he did not live long after he left Door county ... .In 1848 I entered the land where the village of Sturgeon Bay now stands. My brother Robert, now deceased, built the "upper mill" in Sturgeon Bay in the fall of 1854 or 1855. Bradley & Crandall had built the "lower mill" a year or so previous . . .Mr. Carrington was the first white settler in Bailey's Harbor, having settled and left there about 1849. His son Miles, now
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
but for their services received a large salary. To-day the true American principle is adopted, and the county officials occupy a magnificent building, but their pay is humble, compared with the salary paid in by-gone years. Sturgeon Bay has grown from a settlement of a hand ful of inhabitants to a thriving place with a population of an even 1,200 the 1st day of June, 1880. The branches of business carried on in Sturgeon Bay, will be found in the county directory, which appears
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.
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
In the archive1867 Plan of Lake Michigan and Sturgeon Bay Canal Door County Wisconsin
In the archiveSturgeon Bay 1881
In the archiveEquisetum x ferrissii Door County Wisconsin
BuiltSturgeon Bay Canal Lighthouse is built
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey3 decades in the archive, from the 1860s to the 1890s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Sturgeon Bay. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Sturgeon Bay.
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Sturgeon Bay’s page.
Retake this view · +15The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.
National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.
Grew from 1,199 people in 1880 to 9,646 in 2020, 8 times over.
15 censuses, 1880–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Sturgeon Bay’s Wikipedia page.
Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
One place: the Sturgeon Bay Canal Lighthouse (listed 1984).
What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.
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 Wikimedia Commons (4), Wikidata (2), the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the USGS Geographic Names Information System, Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress) 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.
1899