County Past
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Bayfield County, Wisconsin

Historic newspapers, landmarks, and county history layers for genealogists and local historians.

—newspaper titles
—digitized titles
25historic places
—earliest paper
1845formed
16,220pop. 2020
20cemeteries
—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 25 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1974. Most listings are in or near Bayfield, Washburn, Drummond.

Summary generated automatically from the source data on this page.

Newspapers

Library of Congress

Newspaper directory data for Wisconsin is not yet loaded on this site. Browse Bayfield titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

13 of 25 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

25 listed properties
PropertyCityTypeListed
Bank of WashburnWashburnBuilding1980
Bayfield County CourthouseWashburnBuilding1975
Bayfield Fish HatcherySalmoBuilding1981
Bayfield Historic DistrictBayfieldDistrict1980
Booth CooperageBayfieldBuilding1976
Boutin, Frank, Jr., HouseBayfieldBuilding1974
Christ Episcopal ChurchBayfieldBuilding1974
East Third Street Residential Historic DistrictWashburnDistrict2014
Forest LodgeNamakagonBuilding2002
Forest Lodge LibraryCableBuilding2001
Herbster Community CenterHerbsterBuilding1997
Hokenson Fishing DockBayfieldBuilding1976
Island Lake CampDrummondBuilding1982
Lake Owen Archeological DistrictDrummondDistrict2012
OTTAWA (Tug) Shipwreck SiteRussellSite1992
Old Bayfield County CourthouseBayfieldBuilding1974
Palo, John and Justina, HomesteadOuluBuilding2002
Pureair SanatoriumBayfieldBuilding1981
SEVONA (Bulk Carrier) Shipwreck SiteBayfieldSite1993
Sevona CabinBayfieldBuilding1976
Shaw FarmBayfieldBuilding1976
Shaw Point Historic DistrictBayfieldDistrict2020
THOMAS FRIANT shipwreck (gill net tug)Port WingSite2019
Washburn Public LibraryWashburnBuilding1984
West Bay ClubBayfieldBuilding2014

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Property links open NRHP nomination files at the National Archives.

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Bayfield was formed in 1845 (1845-02-19) from St.

LA POINTE (now BAYFIELD) created by Wisconsin Territory from ST. CROIX. LA POINTE included territory in present Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Bayfield County population from 1850 to 2020 (Census historical series).

17k8,7723441850188019201940196020002020
18501860188019001920194019501960198020002020
48935356414,39217,20115,82713,76011,91013,82215,01316,220

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau historical county population (Forstall 1790–1990) and public-domain / CC0 county population series through 2020.

National Park Service sites nearby

NPS

Park units within about 40 km of the county centroid (from NPS Public POIs; no API key).

SiteTypeDist.
apisPark unit48.4 km

Source: NPS National Datasets / Public POIs. The NPS Developer API requires a free key and was not used.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

20 cemeteries and 1 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 20 of 20 listed
NameLatLon
Barnes Memorial Cemetery46.35317-91.51305
Calvary Cemetery46.68539-90.90147
Calvary Cemetery46.81631-90.83194
Delta Cemetery46.47322-91.23994
Evergreen Cemetery46.81631-90.83323
George D Jones Junior Memorial Cemetery46.80826-91.11434
Greenwood Cemetery46.76726-91.38824
Greenwood Cemetery46.20389-91.30615
Herbster Community Cemetery46.8256-91.21704
Hillcrest Cemetery46.65085-91.5099
Hillside Cemetery46.69657-91.41149
Iron River City Cemetery46.56712-91.39856
Mason Cemetery46.44027-91.05536
Moe Cemetery46.37902-90.94989
Oulu Luthern Cemetery46.65509-91.53237
Pine Glade Cemetery46.62285-91.51006
Saint Anne Cemetery46.20739-91.3034
Saint Peters Cemetery46.52402-91.07841
Valley View Cemetery46.62249-91.36142
Woodlawn Cemetery46.68551-90.9036
Historical populated places — 1 of 1
NameLatLon
Lake Owen46.26995-91.25408

Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain). Cemeteries from the 2021 NationalFile archive; historical places from GNIS HistoricalFeatures topical extract.

Historical markers

HMdb link

Marker text and photos from the Historical Marker Database (HMdb) are not embedded here. HMdb allows non-commercial reuse with attribution, but commercial/compensated use needs written permission; this is a commercial site, so we only link out.

Search HMdb for Bayfield County, Wisconsin

Terms: hmdb.org/copyright.asp. Linking is encouraged by HMdb.