FOUNTAIN ON ITS WAY

Sturgeon Bay – Snug up against the Oregon Street bridge, just below 1st Avenue, a bare, weedy lot has been transformed into a public green space with gardens, seating and free amenities for artistic activities and community games. 

Sturgeon Bay’s newest green space, Graham Park, announces itself gateway-style to provide what Destination Sturgeon Bay describes as an eastside welcome from the water. 

The focal point of it all, a custom water fountain, is all that remains to finish the park, but supply-chain and labor-shortage delays have slowed the fountain’s completion, said Pam Seiler, Destination Sturgeon Bay’s outgoing executive director. 

Local artist Rob Soukup designed the 15-foot-tall water feature: a sculpture of a ship that joins the working waterfront, represented by the steel hull; with the recreational waterfront, depicted with a brushed-aluminum sail. The hull has been completed, Seiler said, but the sail portion isn’t yet done. 

She has overseen the project and will usher it through to completion, which she hasn’t given up hope might be by the end of the year. More likely, however, it will arrive, and they’ll let it sit over the winter before having a grand opening in spring 2022.

The park is named for the Graham family, some of whose members helped to shape Sturgeon Bay’s early history. The first, Oliver Perry Graham, staked the first official claim in Sturgeon Bay in 1849. To learn more about the project, contact Pam Seiler at [email protected] or 920.743.6246.