Village of Dorchester, Clark and Marathon Counties, Wisconsin: Place Profile

No ranked list of Dorchester's largest employers with headcounts was found in a primary source.

No hospital or clinic located in the village was confirmed.

The year the village incorporated was not confirmed from a source read this session.

The municipality is the Village of Dorchester, an incorporated village in Clark and Marathon counties, Wisconsin (Census place GEOID 5520450).

Nearly all of the village lies in Clark County; a small part (Census county subdivision 5507320450) lies in Marathon County.

The Village of Dorchester is distinct from the neighboring Town of Holton (Marathon County) and Town of Mayville (Clark County), both of which use Dorchester mailing addresses.

The village covers 1.389 square miles of land and 0.034 square miles of water.

The Marathon County part of the village covers 0.1 square miles of land.

The village's Census internal point is near 45.001426, -90.331157, and the village notes it sits along the 45th parallel.

The village crosses Highway 13 and is minutes from State Highway 29, which it describes as the commuting route to Wausau, Marshfield, Medford and Eau Claire.

The 2020 Census counted 849 residents in the Village of Dorchester: 846 in the Clark County part and 3 in the Marathon County part.

The Wisconsin DOA estimates Dorchester's population at 845 as of January 1, 2025 (842 in Clark County, 3 in Marathon County).

The Census Bureau's July 1, 2024 estimate for Dorchester village is 840.

The village's home page cites a population of 875.

The village reports 353 households and 378 housing units at the 2020 Census.

The ACS 2019-2023 5-year estimate of Dorchester's population is 818 (+/-166).

The ACS 2019-2023 median age in Dorchester is 33.4 years (+/-9.5).

The ACS 2019-2023 median household income in Dorchester is $54,750 (+/-$6,918).

The ACS 2019-2023 median value of owner-occupied homes in Dorchester is $142,000 (+/-$20,844).

Keith Lageman is Village President.

The board trustees listed by the village are Cynthia Johnson, Kurt Schwoch, Eric Klemetson, Troy Ballerstein, Jennifer Lopez and Zachary Peissig.

Jenny Reynolds is Village Clerk/Treasurer (715-654-5006, [email address]).

The Wisconsin Municipal Data System lists Jenny Reynolds as clerk for both county parts of the village, at 250 Parkside Dr, Dorchester.

The next posted regular Village Board meeting is Wednesday, October 7, 2026, at 7:00 p.m. at the Dorchester Municipal Building (Village Hall), 250 Parkside Drive; no standing meeting rule is stated.

Agendas post before each meeting on the village website and at the Clerk's Office, under the Wisconsin Open Meetings Law, and residents can subscribe for notifications.

The official website is dorchesterwi.gov (Town Web); its agenda archive loads from the HeyGov platform.

Village offices at 250 Parkside Drive are open Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

The village has its own police department, located in the same building as the Clerk/Treasurer's Office at 250 Parkside Drive.

The village runs water and sewer utilities with quarterly billing and Monday garbage and recycling pickup; electricity comes from Xcel Energy and natural gas from WE Energies.

Dorchester students are bused 8 miles south on Highway 13 to the Colby School District; the Census places the whole village inside that district.

Colby School District (NCES 5502730) runs 4 schools from PK-12 and enrolled 930 students in 2024-25.

The Dorchester Elementary School and St. Louis Elementary School both closed after the 2005-06 school year, according to the village historian.

The village's business list includes manufacturers and processors such as Meyer Manufacturing Corp, Marathon Cheese, Westar Mfg Corp, Staab's Manufacturing, Northwest Hardwoods Dorchester Sawmill and Pinter's Packing Plant.

Because the village spans two counties, its CDBG housing rehabilitation loans run through two administrators: Chippewa County Housing Authority for the Clark County part and the Central Housing Region for the Marathon County part.

For county context, Clark County had 779 business establishments and 9,517 paid employees in 2023, 3,947 of them in manufacturing.

The Tribune-Phonograph, a weekly, names Dorchester among its coverage areas.

The village's park history reprints items from The Dorchester Clarion of 1967 and 1968.

The Dorchester Public Library is at 155 N. 2nd Street; ReAnna Oestreich is director.

A 2,400-square-foot addition to the library, completed in April 2012 with a June 2012 grand opening, houses the Dorchester Historical Center.

Fire and EMS come from the Central Fire & EMS District, which keeps Station 3 at 480 E. Business County Road A in Dorchester; Joe Mueller is district chief.

Village addresses use ZIP code 54425; a USPS source was not read.

Memorial Hall, at 175 N. 2nd Street, is a privately run rental hall whose upstairs reception room seats up to 350.

Dorchester Park is a 43-acre park with a stocked pond, a campground open May 1 through October 15, two shelters, courts, a ball field, a walking path and a disc golf course.

The park and lake grew from a 1967 effort led by then-village president Ted Schwoch Jr., with state approval in February 1968 and added funding approved through LAWCON in March 1968.

DASE Park, behind the library and Memorial Hall off North 2nd Street, is the playground of the former Dorchester Elementary School.

The village promotes hundreds of miles of snowmobile trails in winter, and the Dorchester Midnight Riders are among its listed organizations.

A Dorchester Days Committee is among the village's listed organizations; the event's dates were not confirmed.

Recent village notices (September 2026) announced a Dorchester Public Library fall fundraising event and village-wide clean-up days.

A brickyard north of the village, opened in 1885 and run by J. M. (John) Fisse, produced about 60,000 bricks a year, according to a 1901 state clay survey quoted by the village.

The Ashland Iron and Steel Company built eight charcoal kilns a mile south of town in 1889 and later two more; they ran until 1902.

A 1901 state clay survey quoted by the village places Dorchester in northeastern Clark County on the Wisconsin Central Railroad.