Biohazard Cleanup Near North Phillips Phillips, WI

Phillips is a city and the county seat of Price County in Wisconsin's Northwoods.

The town of Phillips was platted in 1876 and named after Elijah B. Phillips, the general manager of the Wisconsin Central Railway, and it began as a logging town.

On July 27, 1894, a devastating forest fire destroyed nearly the whole town of Phillips, and 13 people died in the blaze; a memorial to the disaster now stands on the shore of Lake Duroy.

Phillips was rebuilt after the 1894 fire and reached its peak population of 1,973 residents in 1920.

Phillips had 1,533 residents at the 2020 census, and at the 2010 census its 1,478 residents lived in 695 households.

Phillips is home to the Wisconsin Concrete Park, where retired lumberjack Fred Smith spent the years from 1948 to 1964 building more than 200 concrete sculptures decorated with glass and found objects — one of the most significant folk art environments in the United States.

Phillips was declared the "Wind Capital of Wisconsin" by Governor Lee S. Dreyfus after Phillips High School students erected a wind turbine on the school grounds in May 1980, a project sparked by a July 4, 1977 downburst storm that destroyed roughly 850,000 acres of Price County timber.

The city sits on the Phillips Chain of Lakes, a roughly 1,236-acre chain on the Elk River made up of Long Lake, Duroy Lake and Elk Lake, known for walleye and muskellunge fishing.

Phillips lies on Highway 13 about 77 miles north of Marshfield and is served by the Price County Airport, located one mile northwest of the city.