Death's Door Maritime Museum — Attraction in Town of Liberty Grove

Gills Rock and I go back a long time, having first visited on a scuba trip in 1969. On that trip I found an very old bottle in Death’s Door Passage and on a later trip helped to recover an anchor just off Pilot Island. There was talk of starting a maritime museum, and the owner of On The Rocks, Gene Shastal and managers Bob and Sara Lapp asked if I would consider donating it to their fledgling museum.

Somehow that never happened, and I re-visited the area in the 90’s and found a dark building with some artifacts strewn around. So I wanted to visit again just to see what had happened. We first found a sign of Hope (pun intended as the fishing vessel Hope marks the entrance to the museum.) and spotless building managed by Adam Gronke, the site manager for the Door County Maritime Museum. Visiting with Adam was a breath of fresh air – he knows the area and the rich history there, we made arrangements to send that old bottle up to him for potential display.

After visiting a little, Adam handed me a tablet and showed us how to use it on the interactive displays. That was a wonderful tool to see and read and hear all the tales back to the early days of fishing in the area and the story of the bitters on Washington Island. There is a full sized fishing tug inside the museum that you can enter and view. The admission fee is only 6.00 for adults. Go see and enjoy! Take the kids and make...

Having previously visited the Door County Maritime Museum and the Cana Island Lighthouse, we were disappointed in the Death’s Door Maritime Museum. All three are affiliated, but this one seems neglected in comparison to the other two, which are of very high quality. The Death’s Door one is very small and does not have as many interactive exhibits or attention to upkeep (evident by the steps full of weeds that lead up to the entrance). The best part is the wooden fishing tug named “Hope” that was built in 1930; visitors can climb in and even steer the wheel. It would be super nice if this museum would have some of the features from the main Maritime Museum in Sturgeon Bay, such as the introductory overview video of Door County and the interactive high-tech exhibit that shows if the person behind the steering wheel is doing a great job or wrecking the boat. Fortunately the nice employee told us about the small privately-owned Island Clipper Ferry right beside the museum, and we took a wonderful ride through the Death’s Door waters to Washington Island and back. That made it worth going all the way up to the top of the peninsula, but the museum alone...

We love learning about Door County history, and the Deaths Door Maritime Museum did not disappoint! There's a cute gift shop to visit on your way in/out to get a souvenir. There is a minimal fee of $6/person to tour the museum, but well worth it!

The tour starts with artifacts and live audio footage from the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Then, it leads you to a fishing boat that was used until the captains last voyage before he retired I believe. The boat can be entered to see the equipment used. There is a video to watch that showed the fishermen as they dropped their nets and retrieved their "catch" as well as an interview with the captain. (Sorry I didn't write down the names for my review)

The next area is a lot of boat motors over the decades, and other artifacts.

We really enjoyed the tour and recommend it if you like...