Monday was move-in day for new exhibits at the soon-to-be-christened Jim Kress Maritime Tower in Sturgeon Bay.

Alabama-based Southern Custom Exhibits used one large semi-truck to deliver the materials for three of the tower’s 10 floors. The company will install the exhibits over the next two weeks and will outfit the first-floor maritime theater and gift shop, the stewardship area, the 10th-floor working waterfront exhibit, and the Baumgartner observation deck.

It has been four years since the Door County Maritime Museum announced the capital campaign for the project and Deputy Director Sam Perlman says the next two weeks will be among the most significant in the organization’s history.

The christening of the Jim Kress Maritime Tower will be the first of three such events for the new structure over the next year. It will host a ribbon-cutting when the tower’s other seven floors exhibits are unveiled and a grand opening celebration will take place next May. The 11 a.m. event also coincides with National Maritime Day on May 22nd, which will also feature a salute to health care workers and merchant mariners at noon with three loud blasts from the Tug John Purves.

Photo courtesy of the Door County Maritime Museum