LAKE MICHIGAN, Wis. – The Wisconsin Historical Society announces the listing of the Sandy Bay Pier, located in Lake Michigan near Kewaunee County, on the State Register of Historic Places. State Historic Preservation Officer Tricia Canaday presented a certificate to Amy Rosebrough.
Sandy Bay Pier is an early example of a resource crucial to Euro-American transformation of Kewaunee County and the midwestern United States. It represents the rural coastal heritage of the western coast of Lake Michigan and the infrastructure that facilitated the creation of the county’s agrarian economy during the Colonization era. The pier served as a point of disembarkation, embarkation, export, import and resupply serving area residents and owners of the adjacent Sandy Bay sawmill and commercial complex before and after the 1854 Treaty of the Wolf River, when the forests of the northwestern Lake Michigan coast were opened for exploitation and Euro-American colonization. The pier represents a nexus where the lumber trade and immigration interfaced to permanently alter Kewaunee County’s landscape and economic system. Archaeological deposits around the pier have the potential to supplement historic records regarding the often-unnoted people who worked on the pier, trod its decks, and frequented the waters around it.
The State Register is Wisconsin’s official list of state properties determined to be significant to Wisconsin’s heritage. The State Historic Preservation Office at the Wisconsin Historical Society administers both the State Register and National Register in Wisconsin.
Additional information for the Sandy Bay Pier is available at:
To learn more about the State and National Register programs in Wisconsin, visit: www.wisconsinhistory.org.
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.
