Douglas County was created in 1854 from La Pointe County. The new county was named after U. S. Senator Stephen Douglas from Illinois. This is one of the rare cases of a county being named after a living person. Superior was chosen as the county seat. Douglas County is located in the far northwest corner of Wisconsin on Lake Superior and bordering Minnesota.
The first Europeans to visit the Douglas County area were the French voyageurs. The first known visit was in 1618 by Etienne Brule who was working for Samuel de Champlain. Champlain’s map of 1632 shows the southern coast of Lake Superior and this started the fur-trading industry in the area. The Douglas County area contains of one of the major water highways used by early travelers and voyagers of inland America. This water route, the Bois Brule–St. Croix River Portage Trail, connects Lake Superior and the Mississippi River. The Bois Brule and St. Croix River systems were separated only by a short portage near Solon Springs, Wisconsin. This waterway was an important route in the Wisconsin fur trade.
With the decline of the fur trade, mining and shipping became an important part of the local economy. In particular the shipping of iron ore from Superior and neighboring Duluth Minnesota to steel mills located elsewhere on the Great Lakes. The Edmund Fitzegerald’s last port of call before sinking in November 1975 was Superior. The “Twin Ports” are connected by the Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge, which is named after Major Richard Bong who grew up in nearby Poplar Wisconsin. Major Bong was a pilot in the Pacific Theater in World War II and was awarded the Medal of Honor for shooting down 40 enemy planes.
Note: alhough Duluth and Superior are called the Twin Ports, Duluth is much larger than Superior.
The Douglas County courthouse is located at 1313 Belknap Street in Superior. It was built from limestone and brick in the Classical Revival Style in 1918. In 1982 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.