FROMFROM FIRSTFIRST AMERICANSAMERICANS TOTO EUROAMERICANSEUROAMERICANS!! ArchaeologyArchaeology andand HistoryHistory ofof thethe WISWIS 5757 TransportationTransportation CorridorCorridor! ! Historic Euroamerican Settlement of the Door Peninsula Early Presence The Belgians

Jean Nicolet was among the first Europeans to arrive in Immigrants from Belgium began to settle the Door Wisconsin, landing on the eastern shore of Green Bay near Peninsula and cleared land for farming in the 1850s. The Red Banks in 1634. He was followed by Claude Allouez in disastrous 1871 wild fire that burned Peshtigo also burned 1639 and Father Louis Hennepin in 1675. much of the Door Peninsula. After the fire, Belgian settlers built distinctive red brick houses and roadside chapels. For the next 200 years, American Indian groups including Many Belgian families supplemented farming income by the Ho-Chunk, Menominee, and Potawatomi shared the manufacturing handmade wooden shingles. region’s resources with Euroamerican explorers and settlers. Following the Civil War, many of the established Belgian settlements grew into large towns and WIS 57 provided the transportation infrastructure necessary to connect these settlements. Today, some 20 percent of Door County residents can claim Belgian ancestry.

Marcelin Baudhuin House, built 1871; this is a typical front-gabled house with a spindled porch and segmented arched windows as well as a small, circular bulls-eye window (WHS image) The area around the town of Namur strongly reflects the ethnic Belgian presence on the Door Peninsula and the continuing residence by Belgian-American families. The Namur-Brussels area has been designated a National Historic Landmark District and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Edwin Willard Deming’s oil painting of Nicolet’s landing at Red Banks (WHS 1942.487) Early Settlers

Door County’s first community was settled by Increase and Mary Ann Claflin in 1835. Claflin came form New York via Ohio and New Orleans finally settling first in Kaukauna and then in Little Sturgeon Bay. Many later immigrants settled along Bay Settlement Road (now WIS 57). Conflicts increased between Euroamericans and Indians due to differing lifestyles and increased demand for farmland. Ultimately, most Native Americans were removed from the Location of Door County Belgian-American settlements of Typical Brussels, Wisconsin farmstead (WI.BelgAmrCol.0289b.bib) Door Peninsula by the mid-1800s according to the terms of Namur and Brussels (UWM-ARL image 2012) treaties signed by tribes and the U.S. government.