Sand Island (Wisconsin)

Sand Island is one of the Apostle Islands, in northern Wisconsin, in Lake Superior, and is part of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. It is located in the Town of Bayfield in Bayfield County. The Sand Island Light is located on the island. There is another Sand Island Lake Chippewa in Sawyer County, Wisconsin.

Much of the land in the Bayfield and Apostle Islands cleared by the logging industry in the late 19th century was later sold to Scandinavian pioneers seeking to settle in the area to farm, fish, or work in the logging or iron ore industries. (Ashland WI Visitor's Center Archives)

In 1870 Francis (Frank) Shaw, from Sandusky, Ohio, came to La Pointe, apparently to investigate establishing a fishing business, and purchased thirty-seven acres of land along the southeastern shore of Sand Island. In May 1871 Frank Shaw was setting pound nets in Chequamegon Bay, but in the winter the Shaws returned to Sandusky. For the next several years it appears that the Shaws maintained homes in both La Pointe and Sandusky until they left Sandusky permanently in the mid-1870s. During this time, Frank Shaw was developing his Sand Island fish camp. But unlike other fishermen with camps on Sand Island at that time, Shaw owned the land. In the early 1880s the Shaws moved their primary residence from La Pointe to Bayfield. About this time the Sand Island property began to serve as a summer home for the family, while Frank Shaw stayed out from spring until fall. By the mid-1880s, perhaps earlier, Shaw was planting crops on the island. Fishing, however, remained his primary occupation. During the 1890s Shaw maintained a fishing fleet of more than four boats and usually hired at least three men to assist him. In 1895 Fifield wrote of “Shaw’s Landing”: “Captain Frank Shaw has a good snug farm at this point, where he has been for the past twenty years engaged in fishing and farming.” In 1897 Frank and Josephine Shaw began to live on Sand Island year round. As Frank Shaw developed his fish camp into a home, farm, and expanded fishing operation, he built a log building (the first house) on the shore, a log and frame house farther inland, a root cellar, workshop, smokehouse, and additional buildings. In 1898 he expanded his dock, which had a fish house at the end. A number of these buildings survive today as part of the National Register-listed Shaw-Hill farm.

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