From
The WPA Guide to Wisconsin (Tour 7: pp. 380-381):
"WAUSAU (Ind.,
wassa, far away place), 130.1
m. (1,191 alt., 23,758 pop.), a hurrying commercial and industrial city scattered along a rapids in the Wisconsin River, has clean, well-paved streets, green, clipped lawns, well-kept houses, and a number of factories manufacturing paper and wood products. About 1836 Robert Wakely ventured up the Wisconsin River as far as the rapids here, then known from the descriptions of other explorers as Gros Taureau (Fr., big bull). In his own words, when Wakely first encountered the vast pine forests he "became enamoured with it": later in St. Louis he told George Stevens fabulous stories of the wealth to be gleaned in the north. Stevens investigated the region, and then in 1839 bought machinery and built several sawmills. He also established a supply depot at Stevens Point (
see Tour 18).
Big Bull expanded rapidly. Walter McIndoe, the Plumer brothers, and Alexander Stewart erected sawmills; Charley single built the Forest House, the first hotel. A sled road was constructed in 1846, a plank road to the county line was built, and in 1850 the settlement was renamed Wausau. In 1864 August Kickbusch was village president, and the town was almost a city; but Kickbusch, a civic-minded Prussian, was not satisfied. Three years later he went to Germany, there chartered a ship, and returned with 702 immigrants to settle the Wisconsin River Valley. The first railroad, the Wisconsin Valley, came in 1874 and stimulated the logging industry.
By 1906 the timber was gone, but Wausau had grown wealthy. Rich lumbermen, who had built their mansions here, were unwilling to leave them and opened other channels of interest and profit. As sawmills farther north still required machinery, a factory was established to provide it; paper mills sprang up in Rothschild and Brokaw, near-by towns. Woodworking and veneer plants, two shoe factories, an abrasive factory, a cheese plant, an electric motor works, feed and flour mills were built and grew slowly. A mutual insurance company established home offices here and expanded to other cities. Wausau also prospered as the wholesale and retail trade center of an extensive agricultural region."
Some of the rich lumbermen's mansions still stand today. Wausau has preserved many of the historical buildings from the early 20th century. Wausau Insurance is still headquartered in Wausau.