Town of Baileys Harbor

Baileys Harbor grew from a safe harbor discovered in 1848 by Captain Justice Bailey while seeking shelter from a Lake Michigan storm, after which his employer, Alanson Sweet, sent crews to carve a town out of the wilderness. Sweet also built the Baileys Harbor "bird cage" lighthouse, which marked the harbor entrance from 1853 to 1870, and it was later replaced by the Baileys Harbor Range Lights just north of here, which guided vessels into the harbor for nearly a century. From 1894 to 1948, the Coast Guard station at Baileys Harbor answered hundreds of calls for assistance. The land surrounding the Range Lights was deeded to Door County in 1934, and dedicated citizens worked together to preserve the rare habitat as The Ridges Sanctuary, founded there in 1937 as the first private nature preserve in the state and a refuge for rare plants and animals. The Frogtown Art Colony, established in 1922 by two Art Institute of Chicago professors under a federal World War I veterans rehabilitation program, lasted only three years but helped popularize Door County as an art center. Community traditions included baseball, with the Baileys Harbor Giants playing one block south of here, and a July 4th parade that dated to the town's earliest years.

Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin · United States