Old Anderson House Museum

Sister Bay's first settlers were Scandinavians who immigrated to the area in 1757. It became an incorporated village in April of 1912. The village was named after the Sister Islands which lie at the entrance to the harbor. 

Ironically, 1912 was a tragic year for the little village. There was a drought which caused crop failures and a hail storm in which fowl from the Koessl farm totally disappeared. In addition, grasshoppers came and destroyed everything in sight before leaving, and the fire of 1912 destroyed six downtown buildings - four stores, a large hotel, and a home. The buildings (which were where Husby's and the Sister Bay Bowl are today) and the general store (which housed the post office) were burned to the ground. 

Sister Bay Village Hall

In 1923, the first auto dealership was started by Clarence Brodd, who later added a filling station and General Electric appliances. In 1945, Masterfreeze began the manufacture of home freezers, walk-in coolers, and milk coolers. Presently the company produces walk-in coolers, which since 1958, have been marketed by Armstrong Cork Company, which now owns Masterfreeze.

The first buildings in Sister Bay to be wired for electricity were the Roeser homestead, then the hardware store and the feed and saw mill, in 1928. The first gasoline engine-driven fire truck was purchased in 1927. The Little Sister Resort was started in 1918. At that time, a horse and buggy picked up resorters who came into Ephraim or Sister Bay from Chicago and other Lake Michigan ports on the Goodrich boats.

The first school house was built in 1865 and presently serves as the Sister Bay Information Center where Highways 42 and 57 meet at the south entrance to the village. The old school building in Schoolhouse Park on Highway 57 was built in 1909. An addition was built so that in 1962 there were four classrooms for the 100 pupils in grades 1 through 8. The writer was a school social worker for the Gibraltar district from 1976 to 1982. At that time, this school housed grades 1 through 4 and was part of that district. The little school just east of Ephraim served only the Kindergarten, and the rest of the grades and high school were in the building next to the Door Community Auditorium. Today Kindergarten through 12th grade are all in the building next to the auditorium.

Rural mail delivery was started in 1904; passengers were also carried on the "stage", as it was then known. The stage served the villages and Sturgeon Bay into the 1920's because the roads were so poor.

National Geographic featured Door County in an article in the 1980's and referred to the County as the "Cape Cod of the Midwest". I suspect it was the Ephraim-Sister Bay-Ellison Bay area that gave the authors that impression. Since that issue came out, tourism to the area has increased substantially.