Biohazard Cleanup Near Riverview Wausau, WI

Wausau is the county seat of Marathon County in central Wisconsin and sits on the Wisconsin River; Marathon County is the largest county by land area in Wisconsin, covering over 1,500 square miles.

The name Wausau comes from the Ojibwe word "waasa," meaning "a faraway place."

French explorers first called the site "Big Bull Falls" for the long rapids in the Wisconsin River, whose bubbling water they named with the French word bulle.

Lumbering launched Wausau — George Stevens built a sawmill in the area in 1840, and Walter McIndoe, who arrived in 1846, helped establish Marathon County in 1850.

Wausau was incorporated as a village in 1861 and received its city charter in 1872, when August Kickbusch was elected its first mayor; five years earlier Kickbusch had personally brought 702 settlers back with him from Germany to the Wausau area.

After the pine forests were cut over and the lumber was gone by about 1906, Wausau reinvented itself, led by Employers Insurance of Wausau — now part of Liberty Mutual — whose famous logo featured the downtown Milwaukee Road depot.

Wausau's population was 39,994 at the 2020 census, living in 17,420 households, and the surrounding metropolitan area covering all of Marathon County had about 138,000 people.

The Wausau area is a center for the cultivation of American ginseng, and the city is also known for the red granite quarried nearby.

After the fall of Saigon, Hmong refugees began arriving in Wausau in the late 1970s with the help of local church organizations, and by 1996 the Hmong were the city's largest ethnic minority group at about 11% of the population.

Downtown Wausau's Dudley Tower rises 241 feet, making it the tallest commercial building in Wisconsin outside of Milwaukee.