[2][3][4][5][6][7] Indigenous peoples used the waters of what is now the Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary for trade, communication, and sustenance, for thousands of years before Europeans arrived in the area, and it is likely that they left artifacts behind on the bottom of Lake Michigan.

[7] After Europeans began to explore and settle the area, storms and other incidents took their toll on ships, and as of March 2024 Lake Michigan as a whole contained an estimated 780 shipwrecks, of which approximately 250 had been discovered.

"[4] Drawing on this report, the State of Wisconsin on December 2, 2014, submitted a nomination asking NOAA to consider designating the area as a national marine sanctuary.

[11] On January 9, 2017, NOAA published a notice of its intention to designate a 1,075-square-mile (2,780 km2) area[4] as the Wisconsin-Lake Michigan National Marine Sanctuary, containing the sites of 37 known historic shipwrecks.

[4][11] An 81-day public comment period and a series of four meetings in the Wisconsin towns of Algoma, Manitowoc, Sheboygan, and Port Washington during the week of March 13, 2017, followed which led NOAA to alter the sanctuary's boundaries, reducing its area to 926 square miles (2,400 km2), including 36 known historic shipwrecks, and to change its name to Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary.

[4][11] However, President Donald Trump, who took office on January 20, 2017, signed an executive order prohibiting the naming of most new national marine sanctuaries in order to allow more offshore drilling for oil and natural gas in the waters of the United States, prompting Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to rescind Wisconsin's nomination of the sanctuary.

[13] By the time it concluded on October 22, the NOAA team had surveyed 70 square miles (53 sq nmi; 180 km2) of the lakebed near Manitowoc and Sheboygan, including four known shipwrecks.

[16] The sanctuary also participated in the creation of a podcast and digital short promoting tourism in the communities along Wisconsin′s mid-Lake Michigan coast[16] and co-sponsored a hands-on learning experience about marine technology and archaeology for 20 Wisconsin teachers from the Manitowoc-Two Rivers area, Milwaukee, and Green Bay.

[18] In September 2023, maritime historicans announced the July 2023 discovery of the wreck of the 140-foot (43 m) American schooner Trinidad, which sank on May 11, 1881, in 270 feet (82 m) of water off the coast of Wisconsin near Algoma.

One of the studies examined key cultural landscape connections unique to the sanctuary, while the other provided an in-depth look at commercial fishing along the shore of Lake Michigan.