Door County, Wis. – The Wisconsin Historical Society announces the listing of the Little Harbor Launch Shipwreck in the National Register of Historic Places on April 14, 2025. The gas launch is located in Green Bay, in Door County.
Little Harbor Launch is a formerly ubiquitous vessel type used locally for fishing, hunting, shipping mail and small freight, recreational boating, movement of workers and local residents, and transportation of tourists to local resorts and points of interest. Even though gasoline launches were a common sight in Door County from the 1890s to 1930s, few examples of this vernacular craft remain today. The Little Harbor Launch wreck site has great potential to yield significant information about gasoline launch construction, design, and use in future archaeological surveys.
The Little Harbor Launch was located during a hydrographic survey of Green Bay conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Office of Coast Survey in 2021. The wreck site’s location was reported to the Wisconsin State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) in the spring of 2022 and first visited by maritime archaeologists in June 2022. With the support of a grant from the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant, SHPO conducted an archaeological survey of the wreck over multiple site visits in May and June 2024. The Little Harbor Launch Wreck is located at the bottom of Green Bay. It sits upright in 92 feet of water. The remains are completely intact up to its railing. All components of the launch’s machinery, hull, and cabin structure remain extant on the site.
State and federal laws protect this shipwreck. Divers may not remove artifacts or structures when visiting this site. Removing, defacing, displacing, or destroying artifacts or sites is a crime. More information on Wisconsin’s historic shipwrecks may be found by visiting Wisconsin’s Great Lakes Shipwrecks website: Wisconsin Shipwrecks.
Additional information for the Little Harbor Launch Shipwreck is available at:
To learn more about the State and National Register programs in Wisconsin, visit: https://wisconsinhistory.org/hp/register/
About the Wisconsin Historical Society
The Wisconsin Historical Society, founded in 1846, ranks as one of the largest, most active and most diversified state historical societies in the nation. As both a state agency and a private membership organization, its mission is to help people connect to the past by collecting, preserving and sharing stories. The Wisconsin Historical Society serves millions of people every year through a wide range of sites, programs and services. For more information, visit wisconsinhistory.org.
