Harrington Beach State Park is a

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural ...

on the shore of

Lake Michigan Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...

in the Town of Belgium. In addition to a mile-long beach, the park contains a white cedar swamp surrounding a lake that used to be a stone quarry. The park provides campgrounds, hiking trails, picnic, and bird watch areas.

History

From the 1890s until 1925, a dolomite quarry operated at the on the site of the park. From 1901 until 1925, the Lake Shore Stone Company developed a

company town A company town is a place where practically all stores and housing are owned by the one company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schools, markets and re ...

called

Stonehaven Stonehaven ( , ) is a town in Scotland. It lies on Scotland's northeast coast and had a population of 11,602 at the 2011 Census. After the demise of the town of Kincardine, which was gradually abandoned after the destruction of its royal cast ...

at the site. Most of the workers were immigrants from Luxembourg, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Italy. When the quarry closed, some of the residential buildings were moved to the Village of Belgium. The foundations of some of the building remain in the state park. In 1968, the

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) is a government agency of the U.S. state of Wisconsin charged with conserving and managing Wisconsin's natural resources. The Wisconsin Natural Resources Board has the authority to set policy ...

began buying the properties that would become Harrington Beach State Park. A campground of 73 sites opened in 2009; it was the first new campground at a Wisconsin State Park in over 20 years. Construction began in 2008 and it was completed in the beginning of September 2009. It opened with 32 electric sites, 33 non-electric sites, 5 walk-in sites, one kayak site (only accessible by water), one group campsite, and one site for the campground host. Before the campground was added, the park had up to 120,000 visitors per year.

References

External links

Harrington Beach State Park
official site
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
Landforms of Ozaukee County, Wisconsin Protected areas established in 1992 Protected areas of Ozaukee County, Wisconsin Quarries in Wisconsin State parks of Wisconsin 1992 establishments in Wisconsin {{OzaukeeCountyWI-geo-stub