- Douglas County -

Douglas county is the situated at the northwestern corner of Wisconsin. It was set off from La Pointe, now Bayfield, county by an act of legislature approved on February 9, 1854, and organized for judicial purposes in the Fall of that year. It was named for Stephen Douglas, a U.S. Senator from Illinois. Lake Superior (north) and the St. Louis River (northwest) form its northern boundary, giving it about sixty-five miles of water frontage. It is bounded by Bayfield county (east), Sawyer county (southeast), Burnett and Washburn counties (south). At the head of Lake Superior, situated on Superior Bay and the Nemadji River, and directly across St. Louis Bay from Duluth, MN., is the city of Superior. It is the county seat and most populated city in Douglas county. The first couthouse, a two-story frame building, was built in 1871. In 1919 the present courthouse was erected using Pavanazza marble and choice Bedford blue cut stone.

In the days before mass transit, expressways, airlines or railroads the lakes and rivers were the "highways" used to transport goods and people. In 1855 vessels engaged in Lake Superior trade seldom visited the head of the lake. It was only at great cost and much trouble that settlers obtained supplies. Yet, but mid-summer of 1855 houses and businesses were springing up at a rapid pace. The first printing press was delivered in May aboard the steamer Sam Ward. The population began to boom in the 1880's when industrialization came to Douglas county. It was then that Northern Pacific Railroad began to develop West Superior. By 1890 Capt. Alexander McDougall, backed by eastern capitalists, moved the American Steel Barge Company from Duluth to Superior. Within the next eight years 35 of the McDougall "whalebacks" would slide sideways into Saint Louis Bay. By 1899 Superior boasted the world's largest ore dock and, in 1900, added the world's biggest grain elevator. In 1984 ore shipments alone from Superior totalled 9.3 MILLION gross tons!!