Door County's Stone Fleet

Behind Government Bluff, which rises 150 feet above the waters of Sturgeon Bay, Door County’s first industry began in 1834 with a limestone quarry. The stone was originally intended for a military fort that was never built, and was later used by the federal government to construct piers and harbors around Lake Michigan. After the government closed the quarry, Frank Hogan reopened it in the early 1880s, but because he was only a squatter on the property he was driven off and later started the Green Stone Company in Sawyer, now part of the city of Sturgeon Bay. With limestone bluffs so close to the water, Sturgeon Bay became an ideal place for the stone business. By 1898, four quarries operated there: Leathern and Smith, the Green Stone Company, the Laurie Stone Company, and the Termensen and Jensen Stone Company. Quarried stone was loaded onto ships moored nearby and carried economically to ports around Lake Michigan, and by 1917 the breakwaters and piers of almost every harbor around the lake had been built in part with Sturgeon Bay limestone. Across the mouth of Sturgeon Bay, the massive footprint of the former Leathern and Smith quarry and many of the quarry docks remain visible, and the remains of several ships from the stone fleet lie on the bottom of the bay near the piers.

Nasewaupee, Wisconsin · United States