Established: 1850
County Seat: Wausau
Parent: Portage County

Marathon Birth, Death, & Marriage Records:
Earliest Registration Dates*:
Births 1870
Deaths 1868
Marriages 1865

Marathon Register of Deeds:
500 Forest Street
Wausau, WI 54403-5568
Telephone: (715) 261-1470

From: Handbook of Wisconsin by S. Silas, 1855
pg. 81-83

MARATHON.

Extends from between towns 26 and 27 north to Michigan, 128 miles in its longest part, and is 42 miles wide. The southern part only is surveyed, though the surveyors are now pushing towards the north. Its principal business is in lumber, and it sends a large amount down the Wisconsin. The soil is not generally good for agriculture, though good farms can be selected. The greater portion of the land is in the hand of Government.

Wausau is the County Seat, and a flourishing place.

Little Bull Falls, about eight miles below Wausau, is also a prosperous lumbering place, and has in its vicinity some of the best farming lands in that region. All the County is in the Steven's Point land district.

The surveyors, now employed in towns 33 and 34 N. and ranges 5, 6, 7 and 8 E., report a very rugged country, with but a moderate quantity of pine, prevailing timber being birch, hemlock, maple, elm, tamarack, &c. The County is well watered with clear running streams, many small lakes, and occasional beautiful ridges of farming lands. As to the pine lands, on the upper part of the Wisconsin River, a heavy district of the best kind, as yet but little explored, lies on the Eagle branch in towns 37 and 38 N., ranges 8 and 9 E., as yet unsurveyed. This will soon be surveyed and brought into market. It lies on the road from Wausau to Lake Superior, and a settlement there will form a resting place between the two.

From Steven's Point to Virgini Falls, 45 miles, is a good wagon road--from that to Lake Agogebec, 87 miles, is only a trail--from the Lake to Ontonagon, 30 miles, there is also a good wagon road;--making the whole distance from Steven's Point to Ontonagon 132 miles. Efforts are making to have this established as a mail route. It is travelled frequently every year by drovers with herds of cattle. The country from Wausau to Boileaux Rapids is a timbered region, mostly composed of pine and hemlock, with an occasional hard wood ridge of maple, butternut, ash, &c., and the soil good.

The Boileaux Rapids, or Grandfather Bull Falls, is a magnificent series of falls and rapids for about four miles, with bold, rocky banks. The river is quite narrow, and navigation with rafts is rendered impossible by large numbers of immense boulders the whole length of the fall. The whole fall is about 75 feet. This may, therefore, fairly be called the head of navigation of the Wisconsin.