534 Area Code 🌍☎️

Rhinelander is a city in Oneida County, Wisconsin, serving as the county seat with a population of 8,285 at the 2020 census. Originally called Pelican Rapids, the area was envisioned around 1870 by Anderson W. Brown as a lumber mill town at the convergence of the Wisconsin and Pelican Rivers, and was renamed Rhinelander in 1882 after Frederic W. Rhinelander, president of the Milwaukee, Lake Shore and Western Railway, as part of an effort to attract railroad service to the region. The completion of the railroad line from Monico to Rhinelander in 1882 jump-started its development as the region's commercial hub, following the Brown family's agreement to convey half their land holdings to secure rail access. Located at 8.61 square miles with a warm-summer humid continental climate, Rhinelander experiences Arctic cold snaps and cooler summers influenced by nearby Great Lakes. The city's 2020 population was 90.8% White, with a population density of 983.6 inhabitants per square mile. Rice Lake is a city in Barron County in northwestern Wisconsin, located on the shore of Rice Lake with a 2020 population of 9,040, serving as a commercial and tourist center for the surrounding rural areas. The area was home to American Indians for millennia, including the Ojibwe people who valued the wild rice on the lake, until the Knapp, Stout & Co. lumber company founded a logging camp around 1868 and platted the village in 1870 with streets named after company officers. The city rapidly developed with its first school, newspaper, and mail service in 1874, followed by the arrival of the Chippewa Falls and Northern Railroad in 1882 and city incorporation in 1887, when the population had grown to 2,130. Economic growth was driven by lumber mills, including the Rice Lake Lumber Company opened by Orrin Henry Ingram in 1887 that employed 200 workers, along with barrel and spoke factories that supported the logging industry. Rice Lake became an educational hub with the opening of Barron County Normal School in 1907 and Indianhead Tech College's forerunner in 1940, followed by a UW-Stout branch campus in 1966 that evolved into UW-Eau Claire - Barron County. Eau Claire is Wisconsin's seventh-most populous city, with 69,421 residents at the 2020 census and an estimated 72,331 in 2024, serving as the county seat of Eau Claire County in the Chippewa Valley metropolitan area with approximately 176,000 people. Located at the confluence of the Eau Claire and Chippewa rivers on traditional Ojibwe, Dakota, and Ho-Chunk land, the city was first permanently settled by European Americans in 1845 and incorporated in 1872, with early growth driven by extensive logging and timber industries. After the lumber industry declined in the early 20th century, Eau Claire diversified its economy through manufacturing and became an educational center with the opening of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in 1916. The city is regionally known for its vibrant arts and music scenes, as the hometown of indie folk band Bon Iver and host of the annual Eaux Claires Music & Arts Festival, and serves as the headquarters for home improvement retailer Menards. Eau Claire experienced 5.4% population growth between 2010 and 2020, making it Wisconsin's second-fastest growing major city after Madison.