Rock Island

Did you know that the Town of Washington Island was actually founded on Rock Island? Learn about that and more in this book is another in the set of 4 written by a professional historian who retired to the island. The island archives keeps these books in print and we are thrilled to offer the entire set as works which are both great captures of island history as well as books by an author with descendants still living here.

From the Preface:

""Rock Island is one of the few remaining places in the state where solitude reigns and the sound of lapping water is greater than that of man himself."

Those words in the Door County Advocate of September 2, 1965 celebrated the purchase by the State of Wisconsin of seven hundred seventy-seven acres-all the land not owned by the federal government-on the Lake Michigan island called at various other times Pottawatomie, Monominee, and Louise Island. This purchase returned to the public domain a bit of land which the United States had begun parceling out to private owners in 1841, a little tract which during most of the Twentieth Century had been to the general public a picturesque, intriguing, even mysterious entity which might be viewed from watery surroundings, but not touched.

Rock Island had not lain dormant in primeval splendor awaiting the 1960's-nor even the 1800's-to begin serving the needs and pleasures of mankind [...]"