The Griffin Inn’s story begins in 1910, when Charles and Amanda Anderson built a family home in Ellison Bay. By 1921, Gilbert and Olga Wickman had expanded the property into the Ellison Bay Lodge, welcoming the earliest travelers to northern Door County. In those days, many visitors came north by steamer from Chicago, seeking cool air and even relief from hay fever before the days of modern medicine. Mothers and children often arrived at the pier with heavy trunks packed for the entire summer, ready to trade city heat for fresh breezes off the bay.

The lodge also served lumbermen who cut the dense forests surrounding Ellison Bay. Here, they found hearty food and a place to rest, while summer guests enjoyed three square meals a day—breakfast, dinner, and supper—cooked on a wood-burning stove. Olga Wickman baked every pie, cake, and loaf of bread herself, and on Sundays the public flocked to the dining room for a full chicken dinner, priced at just $1.50. Rooms with single beds rented for $2 a week, and laundry was done by hand on a wringer washer and hung to dry in the sun.