Art Dettman Shanty catches fire, owners plan to rebuild

ALGOMA – On Friday, Aug. 1, the 90-year-old Art Dettman Fish Shanty, named to the State and National Register of Historic Places list in 1993, caught fire. No other structures were affected, and the main fire was extinguished the same day. According to the owners, the shanty was in the process of becoming a private museum, and the historic photographs had been put on a CD. The Margaret fishing boat’s engine survived.

Algoma’s historical identity is deeply intertwined with its thriving fishing industry, a commercial enterprise that first took root in the late nineteenth century. The abundant fisheries of Lake Michigan provided a rich resource that quickly propelled Algoma into a significant hub for commercial fishing. For nearly a century, from the 1880s until the mid-1980s, the Algoma riverfront was a bustling testament to the industry. A 600-foot-long stretch of the riverbank, extending from what is now the Second Street bridge to the mouth of the river, was decorated with a dense array of wooden docks and shanties.

These shanties were an integral part of Algoma’s fishing economy. Each individual fisherman in Algoma typically maintained his own onshore facilities, including his shanty and dock space. This decentralized approach contrasted with the larger fishing facilities which characterized the industry in other Great Lakes ports in Wisconsin.

This unique aspect of Algoma’s fishing industry fostered a strong sense of individual entrepreneurship and community among the local fishermen, with each shanty representing a distinct operation contributing to the overall productivity of the port. The shanties served as vital centers for storing equipment, repairing nets, processing catches and providing a base for the daily operations of the fishing boats. The sheer number of these personal shanties along the riverbank created a distinctive visual landscape that symbolized Algoma’s deep connection to its maritime heritage.

The Dettman Shanty was built on the north bank of the river in 1935 for Art Dettman, a local commercial fisherman — and eventually mayor of Algoma from 1964-74 — who utilized it as the onshore facility of his fishing operations. In his time as a government official, Dettman was known as “the fishing mayor” because of his passion for fishing. He ended his commercial fishing career in 1950, but retained ownership of the shanty until 1987, when the current owners took possession.

When the shanty was built, it was the newest of thirteen small commercial fishing shanties that lined both banks at the mouth of the Ahnapee River. Unfortunately, nearly all of those buildings have since been demolished and the Dettman Shanty was the largest of the four that remain.

The Art Dettman Shanty was split into three sections, including a fish-cleaning and packing room where the fish were prepared for shipment. Already-gutted fish were offloaded from the fishing boat and brought inside through the sliding door at the south end of the room. The fish were then cleaned and packed in ice which was hand-chipped off large blocks that were stored in a now-demolished building located just to the west of the shanty. Crates of fish were then passed through the sliding door at the north end of the room for delivery to the railroad depot and waiting trucks, which delivered the fish to waiting wholesale markets, most of which were in Milwaukee and Chicago.

In the 1960s, when sport fishing began to replace commercial fishing on the Great Lakes, Dettman began to make some cosmetic changes to the interior of his shanty. Dettman continued to use his shanty for his sport fishing activities, making it one of the few buildings in Algoma that has historic associations with both the commercial fishing and the sport fishing phases
of the city’s history.

The State of Wisconsin’s Cultural Resource Management Plan (CRMP) conducted research in 1993 to confirm the Art Dettman Shanty’s significance was centered on the Great Lakes Fishing

Industry section of the Industry Study Unit of the CRMP. This research identified the Art Dettman Fishing Shanty as the most intact of the few remaining buildings in Algoma that are associated with the city’s historically important local fishing industry. The shanty was then named to the National Register of Historic Places.

The structure of the shanty remains somewhat intact, and the current owners have shared plans to rebuild the shanty as historically accurate as they can. Shanties remain an important part of Algoma’s history and culture, and even as the buildings degrade over the years, the culture does not.