A Fortunate Mix

Sevastopol orchards thrive in an ideal blend of climate and soils, with lime-rich soils providing essential nutrients for fruit trees and cool spring temperatures moderated by the waters and ice of Lake Michigan and Green Bay delaying blooming to prevent tender growth from freezing early in the season. Dolomitic limestone forms the thumb-shaped Door Peninsula, and this bedrock slopes from high bluffs overlooking Green Bay down through wet lowlands into Lake Michigan. The biologically rich Shivering Sands wetland complex extends from Sturgeon Bay to Whitefish Dunes and encompasses 4,000 acres of ancient beach ridges, wild lakes, spring-fed creeks, and the largest cedar swamp in Wisconsin. Limestone is quarried to produce riprap, road fill, and building blocks, and it was once used extensively in construction to make lime mortar and whitewash. The Reynolds Preserving Company began canning peas in 1895, converted its 600 acres to cherry orchards in 1917, and became the world's largest cherry canners. Choice Orchards remains open today and was once part of the original Martin Orchards, whose 700-acre Martin Cherry Orchards were the world's largest from the 1930s-50s. Schwartz Lake is a wilderness lake that the Door County Land Trust donated to the state in 2012, and the Shivering Sands State Natural Area is the largest unbroken wilderness area in Door County, a coastal wetland that is home to diverse plants and animals and many rare species. Fruit trees are often whitewashed to prevent sun scalding, and the Leathem and Smith Quarry, now George K. Pinney County Park, was once the largest crushed stone plant in Wisconsin.

Sevastopol, Wisconsin · United States