The collections of the Door County Maritime Museum, established in 1969, represent an expansive repository of artifacts, photos, oral histories, artworks and other information relating to the deep nautical history of Door County, WI in particular and the Great Lakes region in general.
Our collection contains approximately 2,500 artifacts connected to a diversity of subjects ranging from shipwreck artifacts to paintings and other works of cultural art. Like most museums, only a fraction of our collection is on display at any one time; the balance remains hidden from the public in our storage facilities. Our curatorial and collections staff is diligently working to digitize our collections records.
You can visit the in-progress digital collection here.
DCMM collection highlights include: the 149-foot restored tugboat John Purves; two full-size fishing tugs; more than a dozen smaller boats and vessels; two indigenous dugout canoes; some fifty historic outboard motors; approximately 85 ship models with display stands and cases; several uniforms; shipwreck artifacts (some on loan from the Wisconsin Historical Society); six Fresnel lighthouse lenses and other items documenting the long presence of the United States Coast Guard (and its predecessor services) on the peninsula.
An archive and resource library containing over 25,000 photographs, oral histories, ship plan drawings, books, correspondence and other documentary evidence further enhances this substantial collection of physical stories.
Do you have an artifact or archival donation you are wishing to contribute to DCMM?
Please review our submission policies and complete our donation form: Donations to the DCMM Collections And Archives.
We do not accept “walk-in” donations. We can not guarantee the safety of any items abandoned at Museum property.