James “Digger” DeGroot, the beloved former owner of Digger’s Grill in Fish Creek, was always known as an inveterate prankster. Digger sadly died in 2020 at age 72, but the legend of the “Mayor of Fish Creek,” as he was often called, lives on.

During his heyday as an actor with the Peninsula Players, Digger and his friends would come up with all kinds of wild stunts to amuse each other and Door County visitors. Even the Door County Sheriff at the time, “Baldy” Bridenhagen, was often amused…despite the seemingly law-breaking nature of some pranks.

But on one particular day – the Fourth of July in 1973 – Digger DeGroot made Fish Creek come literally to a standstill with the most elaborate stunt of all. Digger spread the rumor that promptly at 3 pm he would go down the Fish Creek hill on a 10-speed bicycle and jump over five cars! “Those were the days when daredevil Evel Knievel was popular,” Digger recalled. Although Knievel used to jump canyons on motorcycles, Digger’s stunt would be the equivalent of a similarly astounding feat in Door County. 

“Word of mouth spread quickly,” says Digger. “That day, my friend Dennis Kennedy from Peninsula Players came down, and together we put together sawhorses with pieces of plywood to construct a giant ramp.” The two had five cars parked on the side of the road. As more and more people gathered along the streets, Digger and Dennis made an elaborate show of measuring the cars, the ramp and the street, as only two actors could do. “There were people even sitting on the roof of the C&C Supper Club,” Digger chuckled. “Of course, the whole thing was a big prank. I was really going to jump off a small ramp over five Mattel Matchbox cars. We never even put the big cars in the road.”

Nevertheless, the crowd had grown to enormous proportions, and traffic was backed up to the old Nor-Ski Ridge downhill ski slopes! “You can imagine how many folks there were, since it was the Fourth of July,” he laughs. “Suddenly, Baldy appeared at the top of the hill in his sheriff’s car and wanted to know what the hell I was doing!” Digger explained the prank, and Baldy was beside himself because of the traffic backup. “Being Baldy,” Digger remembers, “he said if I put the matchbox cars out right then and did the stunt, he’d let me go ahead with it! So I did and the last thing Baldy yelled to me as I was headed downhill was, “Don’t go through that stop sign!” Of course, that was impossible–with the momentum I’d gathered, I had to run the stop sign. But he didn’t give me a ticket!”

The Day Fish Creek Stood Still is still well remembered by all of the Door County locals and visitors who were present that long-ago Fourth of July. Digger’s daredevil stunt, he recalls, “was just one of many of our pranks that made Baldy laugh.”