It remains 'THE STORY' after 40 years
National Geographic Piece Spurred Tourism Marketing
Forty years have passed and it remains the most significant article ever published about Door County. Ask anyone who has been around the county since 1969 and it’s a good bet they can tell you which one it is.
National Geographic’s March issue of that year dedicated a 26-page spread to the Peninsula. That’s right, The National Geographic. The hugely popular publication of international renown, possibly even more influential then than it is today. Known regionally as a quaint summer tourist destination, Door County suddenly struck a marketing bonanza – the benefits of which continue to ripple through to the present.
Frankly, there couldn’t have been a better publication to reflect the Peninsula’s primary appeal – its natural beauty. National Geographic was then and continues to be one of the finest photojournalistic publications on the planet.
The story behind the story begins as far back as 1966, when the Door County Chamber of Commerce office was tipped off that National Geographic was looking to spotlight a Midwestern location. Barney Irwin, who was the Chamber’s executive at the time, instructed his staff to be alert to any inquiries that might seem associated in any way to a major magazine. One day it happened, when a caller with a New England accent asked about Cave Point, the county’s iconic county park. Irwin pressed the caller, who admitted the magazine’s interest. There were five locations being considered for the spread. It would be a while before Irwin would learn of the county’s fate, but it was eventually chosen.
For almost two years, thousands of images were snapped by Chicago photographer Ted Rozumalski and Don Emmerich, later a Milwaukee Journal staffer. Only 22 photographs made the final cut, ranging from Cave Point on the opening spread to various recreational scenes, the obvious cherry-related photographs as well as fishing, shipbuilding and a one-of-kind aerial of the entire Peninsula taken by a fighter jet from six miles up.
Fittingly, the budding arts scene in the county was represented by a photo of potter Abe Cohn, whose influence on the Door County artistic scene along with wife Ginka has played a significant role in the growth of that aspect of the county’s tourism economy.
“We were subscribers; we had boxes of National Geographics in the attic,” said Ginka in an interview for the Door County Advocate on the 30th anniversary of the story. “But I don’t think they chose us because of that. We weren’t the only (fans).”
It’s interesting to note, except for the Cohn photograph, there was no mention of the arts colony that would develop into the attraction it is today.
Instead William S. Ellis concentrated on the Peninsula’s captivating beauty and a history immersed in rich maritime lore.
“The vista here is one of striking contrasts – of land and water locked together by glaciers that receded thousands of years ago; of an acid-like surf sculpting a cove in rock, while inland, less than 100 yards away, a placid lake nuzzles a beach of white sand; of deer browsing amid wood lilies and gulls in screeching pursuit in a boat hoping for a handout; of harbors throttled by ice; and countryside awash in pinks and whites of flowing fruit trees,” wrote the National Geographic staff writer in his opening paragraphs. Ellis described the Peninsula as an “alien thumb of land on the corn-knuckled fist of the Middle West.”
And then drawing on the surprise that many first-time visitors have experienced dating back to the earliest explorers, he recounts the description of French trader Pierre Espirit Radisson who “saw the Peninsula and the surrounding islands as ‘kingdoms … so delicious.’” It is a description not only used by the magazine in its headlining of the story, but would obviously find favor in the Chamber’s subsequent marketing efforts to this very day.
John Hyland, who served as the Chamber’s executive from 1972 to 1985, told the Advocate in 1999 that it’s hard to gauge just how significant the story was in the county’s marketing success, but it certainly had an impact.
“We were getting calls from all over,” said Hyland, despite the fact that the county didn’t have the resources to advertise much beyond the Chicago, Minneapolis and, at the time, St. Louis. “I’m sure (the article) was one of the tools that spread the word.”
Door County was already enjoying a significant tourism business by 1969. Ellis reported that tourism was already pouring $100 million into the local economy. But Hyland said that as significant as the piece was in raising potential visitor awareness, it was its effect on the local businesses that may have been just as important.
“It helped with the business firms realizing that maybe we had something here … (The story) put an air of importance to tourism that the business firms got caught up in,” said Hyland. “They were willing to respond to new and better programs we were trying to do.”
Just how significant was a story in National Geographic in 1969? With 6.5 million subscribers and another million sold at retail outlets, it was about as close a thing to reaching the general population 40 years ago as the Internet is today.
“Did the attention mean Door County is as exotic as the Amazon or the East Indies? Perhaps not. As mysteriously distant as the North Pole? No,” wrote Mike Shaw in his 30th anniversary piece for the Advocate. “But joining the fraternity of National Geographic’s chosen locales indentified the Peninsula every bit as culturally and naturally interesting.”
In his piece, Ellis drew on history and nature to draw on the Peninsula’s appeal.
Roy Oshkosh, the last chief of the Menominee tribe, took time between his summer powwows in Egg Harbor to tell Ellis about how he found paradise.
“As a boy, my father took me to visit an aunt on the reservation. She told me about a place where our people gathered long ago – a beautiful wooded site with a stream running through it. I looked all over the Peninsula, and when I reached this spot, I knew I had found the place. I bought it.”
The National Geographic’s epic story of a ‘Kingdom so Delicious,” has faded in significance over the past 40 years, but the premise upon which it is based has changed little.
Like the chief, many have looked for the wooded site with a stream running through it and bought it.
