A fatal shipwreck lost for 129 years and the ruins of a 19th-century pier, both in the waters of Lake Michigan off Kewaunee County, recently were named to the National Register of Historic Places, several months after both joined the Wisconsin State Register of Historic Places.
The Wisconsin Historical Society announced in a June 5 news release that the tugboat John Evenson, 3.61 miles northeast of Algoma off the Town of Ahnapee, and Sandy Bay Pier, near the mouth of Sandy Bay Creek in the Town of Carlton, are now national historic places. The John Evenson was listed Aug. 15, 2025, on the Wisconsin historical place register and Sandy Bay Pier joined the state register Nov. 14, 2025.
Here’s what to know about each.
The tug John Evenson
John Evenson, who among other things was captain of the U.S. Life-Saving Service Station in Milwaukee in the 1870s and ’80s, built and initially owned and operated the wooden, steam-powered, 54-foot-long tug named after him in Milwaukee in 1884.
According to a news release from the historical society and the vessel’s listing on the Wisconsin Shipwrecks website, the Evenson was used for harbor towing and fishing in Milwaukee. Soon it began towing lumber rafts, towing barges through the Sturgeon Bay Canal and towing barges and scows loaded with stone for several different owners, and it eventually made Sturgeon Bay its home port because business was readily available.
The Evenson also caught fire and had collisions with other ships several times throughout its service but was rebuilt to its original proportions.
Its last voyage came on June 5, 1895, when the Evenson responded to a signal for assistance from the steamer I. Watson Stephenson, which was hoping to enter the Sturgeon Bay Canal with two consort schooner barges in rough waters and high winds. Possibly misjudging the speed of the Stephenson and its consorts while attempting to pick up the Stephenson’s towline, the Evenson crossed in front of its bow and was struck in the stern.
The tug rolled over, filled with water and sank within minutes. All of the crew were on deck at the time and able to escape except fireman Martin Boswell, who the Wisconsin Shipwrecks site says was asleep below deck and unable to get out after the vessel rolled and filled with water, going down with the ship. A body believed to be Boswell’s washed ashore in Kewaunee County more than a month later, on July 20, 1895.
The vessel was valued at $3,500. The historical society news release said the Evenson’s owner, Capt. John Laurie, carried only fire insurance on the ship, but the Wisconsin Shipwrecks site says Laurie had received payment for an insurance claim on the Evenson when in 1897 he explored raising it but abandoned the plan when he realized the insurance underwriters would take possession of the ship if it was raised successfully. It soon was declared a total loss.
While the Evenson’s loss was widely reported back in the day, its exact location wasn’t known and the reports of where it sank and the depth of the water at the site varied significantly. Divers began looking for the Evenson in the 1980s, including a Green Bay diving club that offered a $500 reward, all without success.
The Evenson finally was found Sept. 13, 2024, about 4 miles northeast of Algoma in about 48 feet of water in a concentrated search for it by maritime archaeologists Brendan Baillod and Robert Jaeck, who also found the long-lost Lake Michigan wrecks of the schooners Trinidad in July 2023 and Margaret A. Muir on May 12, 2024.
Baillod and Jaeck collected all accounts of the loss as well as a customs house wreck report prepared by Laurie, plotted all the locations given and noticed a few clustered in the same small area as that Laurie gave in the wreck report. After finding the wreck and reporting it to the Wisconsin Historical Society, the society’s maritime archaeologists and volunteers surveyed and documented it the same month. The site has not been visited by divers outside the survey.
The historical society news release said the wreck, one of only a few examples of a harbor tug in Wisconsin waters, already has produced a wealth of archaeological knowledge and potentially could yield additional important archaeological data on wooden tugboat construction of the time. Resting on its port side, the Evenson is flattened but its hull bed is present along with major pieces of its machinery including the boiler, steam engine, propeller and rudder. Additional hull components may remain nearby beneath the sand.
Sandy Bay Pier
The pier was erected in 1851 and its listing on the state register says it held historic significance from then until around 1885, with it being reported as rotting away by 1891, according to “Bridging Worlds: The Ghost Ports of Kewaunee County,” a paper written by historical society state archaeologists Amy Rosebrough, Tamara Thomsen and Caitlyn Zant and published in 2023.
The news release from the historical society cited Sandy Bay Pier as an “early resource that reflects Euro-American settlement in Kewaunee County and the Great Lakes region.” It said the pier represents how agrarian economies and lives came together with the use of shipping on the western coast of Lake Michigan to create commercial port complexes on and around piers on that shoreline.
Sandy Bay Pier served as a point of arrival and departure for people and the export, import and resupply of goods for area residents and owners of the adjacent Sandy Bay sawmill and commercial complex that built up around the pier. It also led to an infrastructure that bolstered the growth of Kewaunee County’s agrarian economy, according to the historical society, and shows the importance of the lumber trade, its intersection with immigration, and their effects on Kewaunee County’s landscape and economic system.
The “Ghost Ports of Kewaunee County” paper says that while no submerged artifacts were located during a survey of the site conducted in 2022, at least 21 pilings are still standing in 6 to 12 feet of water extending from 379 feet to 510 feet from shore, also indicating the pier was about 44 feet wide. The paper also said more pilings likely exist closer to shore but are covered by sand and rocks. Subsequent surveys in 2022 and ’23 found artifacts on the land west of the pier.
The historical society’s news release said archaeological deposits around the pier’s remains potentially could supplement historic records regarding the people who worked on the pier and used the waters around it.
Look, but don’t touch
State and federal laws protect the wreck of the John Evenson and the remains of Sandy Bay Pier. Divers may not remove artifacts or structures when visiting the sites. Removing, defacing, displacing or destroying artifacts or sites is a crime.
For more on the John Evenson, visit wisconsinhistory.org/record/national-register/NR2842. For more on Sandy Bay Pier, visit wisconsinhistory.org/record/national-register/NR2834. To learn more about the State and National Register programs in Wisconsin, visit wisconsinhistory.org.
Contact Christopher Clough at 920-562-8900 or cclough@usatodayco.com.
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This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Kewaunee County shipwreck, sunken pier are now national historic places
Reporting by Christopher Clough, Green Bay Press-Gazette / Green Bay Press-Gazette
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Christopher Clough, Green Bay Press-Gazette | USA TODAY Network
