About Us

The Historic Bay View Lake Captains Society was formed to educate and promote to the Bay View citizenry about the tremendous maritime history of Bay View, heretofore largely unknown and unreported. Because there were 71 lake captains that lived in Bay View in 117 houses while captaining 195 different ships, the amount of data gathered over ten years of research, analysis, and writing was large enough, literally, to fill a book.  Two books actually - totaling 1,200 pages!  In addition, this new information lends itself to many projects that are worthy of promoting since they happened in Bay View.  Therefore, the extensive data and future activities and projects led to the creation of this Society. There are no dues in this Society.  Everything is free unless you would like to help contribute to our Projects (see projects page).  Our accompanying YouTube channel is also free and produces two episodes per month.  Simply put, all that’s required to be a member here is to have an interest in Bay View’s maritime history and a desire to watch our free YouTube episodes on Bay View’s lake captains, almost all of it completely and previously unknown.  Its playlists are organized by street, providing free, self-guided walking tours of Bay View lake captains’ homes all completely accessible on your phone. Like to help?  You can “like and subscribe” to our YouTube channel, and of course voluntarily contribute to our planned projects or purchase our books.  All of the money received from these – 100% - goes to support our projects and activities and, should these fail, to the museum ship SS City of Milwaukee.  Note we are not a non-profit or a charity and your contribution is not tax deductible.