Susan Smith: Door County’s curvy Hwy. 42 designed for beauty, not speed

Originally published Aug. 3, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith

NORTHPORT – In a state known for its paved and curvy rural roads, it might be dicey to pick one stretch as the curviest road in Wisconsin.

After all, motorcyclists and sports car hobbyists from all over the flatter parts of the Midwest flock to Wisconsin for its scenic rural drives.

For the fact we’re not completely flat, like much of Illinois, you can thank the glaciers that either missed areas – the hilly Coulee Country near La Crosse comes to mind – or shaped it into eccentric gum drop mounds and deep kettles, like those found in the Kettle Moraine of southeastern Wisconsin.

For the fact so many of our rural roads are paved, unlike the gravel rural roads of other states, you can thank our history as the Dairy State. Milk trucks had to get to farms 365 days a year.

So, yes, we have many curvy roads. But for my money, nothing beats the last couple of miles of Highway 42, as it winds out to the very tip of Door County.

Between Gill’s Rock and Northport, where the car ferry leaves for Washington Island, the highway zigs and zags between the beech and maple trees.

There are plenty of beautiful photos of this stretch, with the trees blazing orange and yellow in the fall, and with the black road coiling through the icy white woods in the winter.

I’ve driven it many times, but I don’t always appreciate its beauty as I’m rushing to catch the last ferry.

During a recent trip, I counted 15 curves in the one and half miles between Timberline Road and Porte de Mortes Drive. And why? It’s not like you’re snaking along the edge of a winding river or skirting the edge of bluffs.

Bill Prue, at the state Department of Transportation office in Green Bay, said he didn’t know the reason, but he has heard the theory it’s designed to slow down tourists so they don’t drive straight into Lake Michigan. “It does look nice,’’ Prue says. “Oftentimes when I’m up there, I’ll see people stopped on one of those knobs taking pictures.”

At the town of Liberty Grove, at the very tip of the county, town road commissioner Walter Kalms says his grandfather complained that “whoever laid out that road had something wrong with his head.”

But Kalms, and deputy clerk Janet Johnson, actually do know the reason: The road was designed by an artist, not an engineer.

Johnson says famed landscape architect Jens Jensen had a hand in laying out the end of Highway 42 to enhance its scenic beauty. Jensen, a Danish immigrant, designed parks in Chicago and Madison before coming to Door County in the 1930s to create, The Clearing, a school to train landscape architects.

Jensen, who had a near-mystical belief in the civilizing power of nature, would probably scoff at my hurry to get to the island so I could start relaxing.

Next time, I’ll appreciate the curves that were put there just so I’d slow down and see the beauty of Wisconsin.

PHOTO INFORMATION: Tourists often stop along the knobs on Highway 42, capturing photos of the road as it winds through the beech and maple trees./PHOTO by Neil Stechschulte