Edgar, WI

Edgar is a Marathon County village that grew out of a railroad stake in the central Wisconsin timber. In 1889 the Milwaukee Lake Shore and Western Railroad marked a line between Wausau and Marshfield; the proposed stop was named Edgar after the man who suggested putting a village there. Alfred Carey had the site surveyed in 1881, and the village incorporated in 1898. A sawmill came with the forest and rail access, followed by hotels, brickyards, hardware stores, shops, schools, and churches. Edgar’s short local formula is railroad, lumber, Scotch Creek, and a village that grew quickly around its first rail-and-sawmill footprint.