Housed in a 1908 mansion in the East Hill neighborhood, the Marathon County Historical Museum covers the settlement and development of central Wisconsin from its Ojibwe inhabitants through the logging era to modern times. The lumber industry made Wausau prosperous in the 19th century, and the museum does a good job of telling that story with local artifacts and period interiors.
The mansion itself is part of the appeal — a well-preserved example of the kind of house the timber barons built when the forests of northern Wisconsin were still vast.