Biohazard Cleanup Near Unity Historic District Unity, WI

Unity is a village that straddles the line between Marathon and Clark counties in central Wisconsin — in the 2020 census, 233 of its 384 residents lived on the Marathon County side and 151 on the Clark County side.

Unity is part of the Wausau Metropolitan Statistical Area, and its population rebounded to 384 at the 2020 census after dipping to 343 people in 145 households in 2010.

Unity began in 1872 with the coming of the Wisconsin Central Railroad and the lumber trade, and lumberman D. J. Spaulding arrived a year later and built a sawmill whose operation once employed about 300 men.

Unity's post office opened in 1873, the same era when the name was chosen from a list supplied by the local postmaster, Mr. Creed.

After incorporation petitions backed by local censuses in 1903 and 1904, Unity was incorporated as a village in 1906, and Alfred Cook served as village president from incorporation until his death around 1920.

A 1921 account in the Wausau Herald marveled that Unity had no marshal, rarely used its jail except by spiders, and had not sent a single criminal case to the county seat in twenty years.

Unity covers just 0.99 square miles, all land, and its economy today rests mainly on the agriculture of the surrounding towns of Unity and Brighton.