“Residents Gave Sunset Park Its Name” from the September 1, 1960 Door County Advocate
Residents Gave Sunset Park Its Name
One of the problems faced by historians is discovering how places were named. While in many instances the origin of a name is obvious, often there is nothing to indicate why a particular name was assigned to a place.
Places get their names in many ways, but seldom is a name assigned in the manner that Sunset park in Sturgeon Bay got its name. Sunset park was named by vote of the people. The beautiful park on S. Third av., now in the midst of a long-term development program that will make it one of the finest municipal parks to be found, has had its present name for almost 30 years.
It was in the summer of 1931 that the Sturgeon Bay park commission, faced with the problem of giving a name to its new park, decided to let the people of the city determine what the park should be called.
The park already had a name, two names, in fact, but there was feeling that there should be a new name less cumbersome than either Island Mill park or Little Lake park. The park commission—D. W. Reynolds, Albert Samuelson and D. C. Peters—no doubt awed by the tremendous number of possible names, determined that letting the public name the park was the best course.
Residents of Sturgeon Bay were asked to suggest names and responded so vigorously that a huge list of nominations had to be narrowed down to 40 for voting purposes. Names that went on the ballot were: Silver Lake park, Recreation park, Bay Shore park, Sunset park, Little Lake park, Rysdorp park, Wautoma park, Otumba park, Shorewood park, Graass park, Island Mill park, Mirror Lake park, Bradley Lake park, Bass lake park, Drowsy Lake park, Pierre Marquette park, Scenic park, Golden Beach park, West Lake park, Lake-Marsh park, Wilderness park, Grand View park, Woodend park, Dunroving park, Lakeside park, Cherryland park, Island park, Municipal park, Ike Walton park, Community park, Legion park, Boys’ and Girls’ park, Nicolet park, Island Grove park, Inlet Beach park and Scofield park.
Perhaps the multitude of names made the choice too difficult. At any rate, when the ballots were printed in the local newspaper only 63 persons voted.
The name of Sunset park won by a wide margin, receiving 35 votes, compared to 13 for Scenic park, four for Otumba park, three for Little Lake park, two each for Bradley and Scofield parks and one each for Mirror Lake, Silver Lake, Cherryland and Rysdorp parks.
Thus the park became Sunset park and has remained as such since then.
The name Otumba park, one of those apparently not in much favor with the voters, had a great deal of historical significance. Otumba having been the name of this area before Sturgeon Bay became a village. The name was eventually given to the park at the west side bathing beach.
At the time Sunset park was being named it appeared that the historical name of Otumba would be preserved in a different fashion. A new hotel to be named the Otumba was being planned to replace the Hotel Carmen, but the deal fell through and the hotel was never built.
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive
[author not stated]
Posts about history
https://doorcounty.substack.com/t/history