Door County Maritime Museum, Maritime museum in Sturgeon Bay, United States.
The Door County Maritime Museum is a maritime museum in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, with additional sites at Gills Rock and Cana Island Light. Its main Sturgeon Bay building, opened in 1997, holds the offices and main exhibits, and hosts the tugboat John Purves, built in 1919, and CG-41410, the last 41-foot Utility Boat, Large in active U.S. Coast Guard service. The Jim Kress Lighthouse Tower, a 10-story addition with exhibit space and an observation deck, became Sturgeon Bay's tallest building when its exterior was finished in November 2019.
The museum was founded in Gills Rock in 1969 and began operating at Cana Island Light in 1971; its Gills Rock site opened in 1975. A capital campaign begun in 1993 produced the year-round Sturgeon Bay building, opened in 1997. A second campaign launched in 2015 added the Jim Kress Lighthouse Tower, finished in November 2020 and opened to the public in May 2021.
The Gills Rock site, opened in 1975, displays commercial fishing gear and exhibits on Great Lakes pirates, and it keeps a 45-foot wooden fishing boat built in 1930. At Cana Island, volunteers drive a tractor and wagon across the causeway when Lake Michigan water covers it, as happened throughout the summers of 2017 and 2018.
The Sturgeon Bay site is the year-round main facility; the Gills Rock site is open seasonally from May to October. At Cana Island, access is via a causeway that can be covered by water after high lake levels, so the museum runs a tractor and wagon, driven by volunteers, to carry visitors to the lighthouse.
Visitors can board the restored 149-foot tugboat John Purves to explore engine rooms, crew cabins, and the wheelhouse. Guided tours last about 40 minutes and reveal how the vessel operated.
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