North Bay, WI

North Bay is a compact Racine County village on the Lake Michigan shore, with 209 residents in the 2020 census and about 97 homes inside a tenth of a square mile. Its small footprint is almost entirely residential, with the lake at the eastern edge and the City of Racine nearby. The village incorporated at the end of 1951 after residents voted overwhelmingly to establish their own municipal government, and the first village officers were elected the following January.

North Bay's civic life runs through a six-member executive board and Village Hall on Hennepin Place. Public schools are part of Racine Unified School District, with Jerstad-Agerholm serving elementary and middle grades and Horlick High School serving older students. The village has the scale of a neighborhood but its own boundaries, elections, and services. Lake Michigan, a short road network, and a small collection of homes make North Bay feel less like a conventional town center and more like a lakeshore village that chose to govern itself.