The Big Ditch

This is the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal. (click on image to enlarge)

Not many people know this but the Door Peninsula takes its name from the treacherous straits located between the tip of the peninsula and Washington Island.

Porte des Morts – Passage of Death – Death’s Door.

It has the rather grim reputation of possibly being the location of more fresh water shipwrecks than anywhere else on earth.

Hence the inspiration for the canal.

A consortium of investors headed by William Ogden – President of the Chicago and North Western Railway – constructed the canal between 1872 and 1881 at a cost of $291,461.

The 1.3 mile stretch - dug through the peninsula - connects Lake Michigan to Sturgeon Bay to Green Bay. It cut the corner and provided for a safer and shorter passage.

The canal was opened to large vessels in 1890 and subsequently sold to the US Government in 1893.

Today it is maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers.