Crime Scene & Biohazard Cleanup Near Prentice Historic District Prentice, WI

Prentice is a village in Price County, Wisconsin, near where Highway 13 crosses the Jump River, located within the Town of Prentice.

Prentice began when the Wisconsin Central Railroad built its line through the forest in 1873 and placed a station at the Jump River crossing, initially named Malden.

In 1881 Alexander Prentice and George Greenman chose a mill site south of the river crossing, and in 1882 they incorporated the Jump River Lumber Company and began sawing lumber that September.

The mill town was named Prentice at the railroad's urging, to honor Alexander Prentice, the lumber company's founder.

At its height, the Jump River Lumber Company mill in Prentice sawed up to 100,000 board feet of lumber per day and employed about 450 men.

The lumber company built the 50-room Jump River House hotel and the Jump River Store, which was touted as the finest store in Price County with 12 clerks.

In the early 1890s a tannery opened in Prentice that was considered the second largest of its kind in the United States, producing 200,000 hides of sole leather at its peak and swelling the population to 1,050.

The Prentice tannery burned twice in 1906, and after the second fire the United States Leather Company declined to rebuild, closing it permanently.

Prentice was platted as a village in 1884 and incorporated in 1899; at the first village board meeting, the only topic discussed was sidewalks.

Prentice had 563 residents at the 2020 census, down from 660 in 2010, when the village counted 293 households.