In May of 1919, the people of Wausau enjoyed a few days of considerable excitement, surrounding the sighting and subsequent hunt for what was believed to be a genuine "ghost."

This is a look into the life of the nation's youngest female pilot and later a pioneer in the aviation industry. Marie J. Towle (Grimm) Schuette, born July 24th, 1923, spent her entire life around aviation by choice and circumstance until her death on October 9th, 2010. A native of Wausau, Wisconsin, she ran the Wausau Municipal Airport for 40 years alongside her husband at the time, Lyle Grimm; not to mention the countless awards she earned for her influence in aviation. 

In 1964, Calvin Cook surveyed the historical records to create a year-by-year record of the creation and changes to the Marathon County's townships between 1850, and 1910. While it was created for the County's Highway Department, it has become a helpful historical document to visualize the settlement and development of the County.

Wausau's Beautification Week

The Third Graders at Marathon Area Elementary have spent the last twelve weeks studying a notable individual from the past and then recorded a short video to show what they learned about them. And these videos were compiled to create a virtual "wax museum."

Click the links below to see the google pages for each of the classes with the videos they created!

A quick overview of the creation of the Marathon County Park Commission and its first decade creating parks for the County.

The Master Horseshoers Protection Association of America is one of the oldest labor unions in the United States. It was first established in Philadelphia, PA in 1874, and from there the protective association expanded. At a gathering of horseshoers in Milwaukee in 1884, led to the creation of the Wisconsin branch of the organization. And over the next decade, further chapters were established across the State.

It took a few years for the first settlers to the area started thinking about schools. Afterall, it was not until 1846 (only seven years after George Stevens became the first person to survey the area) that Mrs. James l. Moore gave birth to the first child born in Wausau. Eventually, as more people came to Wausau to settle down and raise a family, the need for educating children became very important.

These are the two sides of a coin from our Collections that was originally given out to commemorate the “changing of the guard” in the public transportation of Wausau 80 years ago. One side shows the electric street cars that traveled the streets of Wausau and Schofield starting in 1906. The other side shows the new buses that would be the basis for the local public transist system in the latter half of the century.  

In 1929, the Wausau Retail Merchants Association invited Santa Claus to visit Wausau. It appeared as though Old St. Nicholas had finished making all the toys a few weeks early that year, and so he responded (by sending a “flying Eskimo”) that he would be coming to visit Wausau. When he arrived on the morning of December 3^rd, Santa and his reindeer were greeted along the parade route by crowds that were so excited to see him that apparently the police had some difficulty “keeping the traffic lane clear for the sleigh as Santa Claus passed by.”

By the 1880s, the practice of writing a letter to Santa Claus had become popular among American children. And while this was great for the little boys and girls of the Country, the increasing number of letters being sent during the holidays put a much greater strain on the U.S. Postal Service.  

From his early years playing in church bands and studying mandolin, to picking up the drums to perform in early jazz orchestras and with military bands in the 1910s and 1920s, to a long career as a leader of his own dance band, Clifford Hoene was perhaps one of the most experienced and prolific Wausau-area musicians of his time.

A picture from the 1932 Wisconsin Valley Fair reveals an usual time in the musical history of Marathon County. For six years, this group of young women challenged traditional roles for female music, by performing across Central Wisconsin using the saxophone.

In 1939, the Wausau Daily Record-Herald published an article, and some members of the public did not catch on that it was a fake story and that it was April Fool's Day.

Although only around six years apart, the two public gatherings on Wausau's Third Street shown in these postcards reveal the changing attitudes towards German-Americans in the 1910s.

In 1979, Ed Schoenberger constructed his public art installation, "The Pinery," which led to vigorous discussion and debate.

During his youth in the early 1880s, John H. Koehler remembered being enamored with the ginseng plants he encountered in the shaded forest near his family farm in Hamburg Township. Although it would take a few years before he returned to the crop, Koehler would become a major figure in the development of the industry.

The results of and information about the historic picture judging at our booth this year at the Wisconsin Valley Fair.

On June 9th, 1914, over 12,000 people gathered in downtown Wausau for the unveiling of a new sign over the city hall. The new sign stood thirty feet tall, with hundreds of electric lights to illuminate the massive letters that spelled out the new city slogan: WORK FOR WAUSAU.