AA-2026-1EA73F
On the image
Somewhere along the Niagara Escarpment in Door County, a collapsed dolomite shelf has left a turquoise pool open to the sky — the kind of geological accident that the Wisconsin tourist industry learned, over the second half of the twentieth century, to treat as an amenity. The water below is cold and clear enough to read the bottom through, which in 2002 still felt like a mild miracle to visitors who associated the Great Lakes region with murky runoff and bait shops.
A loose group of tourists stands at the rim, spread along the ledge in the posture of people who have agreed that this is worth looking at but are not quite sure for how long. Several have cameras. This is the last era in which looking at a natural wonder and photographing a natural wonder were two separate activities that happened in sequence, before the phone collapsed them into one reflexive gesture.
Door County had been selling this particular stretch of shoreline — ancient reef rock, clear water, cedar forest — as a destination since at least the 1950s, mostly to Milwaukee and Chicago families willing to drive far enough north to feel they had earned a vacation. The people at the rim are doing exactly what every visitor before them did: standing at the edge of something the glacier left behind, deciding whether they have seen enough of it.
Visually related — by likeness
Cave Point Limestone Pool, Door County, Wisconsin, 2002. 2002. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-1EA73F. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/cave-point-limestone-pool-door-county-wisconsin-2002.
@misc{aaAA20261EA73F,
title = {Cave Point Limestone Pool, Door County, Wisconsin, 2002},
year = {2002},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-1EA73F},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/cave-point-limestone-pool-door-county-wisconsin-2002}
}TY - ART TI - Cave Point Limestone Pool, Door County, Wisconsin, 2002 PY - 2002 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-1EA73F UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/cave-point-limestone-pool-door-county-wisconsin-2002 ER -
From the community
Identifications, corrections, and discussion from readers — reviewed by a librarian before appearing here.
Sign in to add an identification, correction, or comment.
No notes yet — be the first to add what you know about this image.