Blood & Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Chetek Chetek, WI

Chetek is a city in Barron County, Wisconsin, in the lake country of northwestern Wisconsin along U.S. Highway 53.

Chetek takes its name from the Ojibwe word 'zhedeg,' meaning 'pelicans'; the name was spelled Sheetak, Shetak and Chetack until the first post office opened in 1872 and standardized it as Chetek.

The year 1872 also brought the Omaha Railroad to Chetek, the establishment of the Knapp-Stout logging camp, and the city's first log schoolhouse.

Chetek was platted on October 15, 1875, on land owned by the Knapp, Stout and Company lumber firm and E. M. Sexton.

When Chetek became a city in 1891, it did so without ever having been a village - it is billed as the first and only city in the United States to pass directly from township government to a full city charter, and at 531 people it was then the smallest incorporated city in the country.

The Chetek Alert, founded in 1882, is still published today as the community's newspaper.

Chetek sits on the Chetek Chain of Lakes - six connected lakes (Chetek, Prairie, Pokegama, Ojaski, Ten Mile and Moose Ear) covering about 3,800 surface acres with more than 120 miles of shoreline.

Prairie Lake is the biggest lake in the chain at 1,545 acres, while Lake Chetek itself covers 683 acres and is the deepest at 22 feet.

The Chetek Hydroflites water ski show team performs on Lake Chetek all summer long from its site by the boat landing on Lakeview Drive.

The chain of lakes is stocked every year with over 100,000 walleye fingerlings through the Wisconsin DNR and the local lakes protection association.