Marathon County Historical Society says 2025 programs served 14,000 people and broke ground on archive center

Representatives of the Marathon County Historical Society presented their 2025 impact report to the committee, showing the society’s work reached local residents and online visitors across the county. The society reported more than 14,000 participants through 52 programs and 37 events, nearly 70,000 visits to its online archives, 151 volunteers contributing nearly 2,000 hours, and an estimated $360,000 returned to the local economy through programming and visitation.

Presenters highlighted longtime in-school programming — more than 1,500 first‑graders visited the Little Red Schoolhouse experience — and community events such as the Pine Grove Cemetery "voices from the past" reenactment that drew more than 250 visitors. Staff said they partnered with 82 organizations last year and completed a major IT migration to a cloud-based server, enabling expanded digitization and online access to county records. Ground was broken for the John and Carolyn Sonnantag archive center, described in the presentation as about 38,000 square feet over three stories for storage and preservation.

Russ Wilson, president of the society’s board, thanked Marathon County for ongoing support and invited the committee to visit society exhibits. Administrator Leonard reminded the committee the county historically provides $54,376 annually to the society and explained the county’s reliance on the society to maintain certain archival records (probate records, farm journals, and historical board proceedings). No county funding changes were proposed at the committee meeting; the society’s impact report and materials are included in the packet for supervisory review.