The Lincoln County courthouse on September 10, 2018
Lincoln County was created in 1874 and organized in 1875. The new county was formerly the northern part of Marathon County. Lincoln County was named in honor of President Abraham Lincoln so it is one of Wisconsin’s “presidential counties.” Beginning in 1875, Lincoln County underwent a series of boundary changes which concluded in 1887 when the northern part of the county became Oneida County.
As with most of northern Wisconsin, the timber industry was key to the growth of the county, particularly when the railroad reached the area. Lincoln County has two incorporated cities: Merrill and Tomahawk. Merrill is the county seat and was named for S. S. Merrill, who was the General Manager of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad at the time. Tomahawk was incorporated in 1891. With the decline of the timber industry and the associated paper and pulp industries, tourism is now a major factor in the county’s economy.
Merrill was originally a logging town and was named Jenny Bull Falls. The European settlement began with a trading post that was opened in 1843. The name was changed to Merrill in 1881.
The Lincoln County courthouse is located at 1110 East Main Street in Merrill. The courthouse was built beginning in 1903 (according to my source) and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. I visited on Monday September 10, 2018 on my way home from the Door County Century bike ride; I stopped in Merrill after my visit to Antigo in Langlade County. The courthouse is located on Main Street near the business district and close to the Merrill City Hall. I was able to park right in front of the courthouse and basically walked around the block with my ailing camera and phone to take photos. Surprisingly I saw that the cornerstone had a date of 1901 on it. This is not the first inconsistency I’ve noted in some of my source materials!
I do not have a lot of memories of Lincoln County. I know that we must have driven through the county occasionally when I was a child as we traveled to see my grandparents in Upper Michigan. One of my high school friends lived in Merrill as a young child and moved to Appleton when we were in fourth grade. His parents recommended a restaurant in Merrill that we stopped at once in a while on our trips back from my grandparents. The restaurant, I’ve long since forgotten the name, was probably located on Main Street but west of the courthouse.