Village of Kronenwetter, Marathon County, Wisconsin: Place Profile

The name of the current Village Clerk could not be confirmed: the staff directory and the Village Board page list the clerk position with a phone number but no name as of 2026-09-19.

The village's designated official newspaper, in which ordinances must be published, could not be identified from the village site.

The Mosinee School District publishes at mosineeschools.org and the D.C. Everest Area School District at dce.k12.wi.us.

No list of the largest employers located inside Kronenwetter was found; the 2019 plan lists only Marathon County-wide major employers (including Aspirus Wausau Hospital, Marshfield Clinic, Greenheck Fan Corporation, Liberty Mutual, and Northcentral Technical College).

Which regional newsrooms cover Kronenwetter routinely could not be confirmed this pass; the Wausau Pilot & Review Kronenwetter tag page returned HTTP 403 to the bot user agent.

Whether a U.S. Post Office operates inside the village was not confirmed; village addresses use the 54455 ZIP code, and residents in the village's 2009 survey named a post office among the establishments they most wanted.

The municipality is the Village of Kronenwetter, an incorporated village in Marathon County, Wisconsin (Census place GEOID 5540550).

Kronenwetter is a village incorporated under general law with home-rule powers over its local affairs.

The present Village of Kronenwetter replaced the former Town of Kronenwetter, which dissolved as a legal entity in 2003; no separate Town of Kronenwetter exists in the DOA 2025 estimates, which list only the Village of Kronenwetter (Marathon County, DOA code 37145).

The Village of Kronenwetter covers 51.636 square miles of land and 0.351 square miles of water.

The village's Census internal point is near 44.819893 N, 89.588673 W.

USGS GNIS records Kronenwetter as a named populated place in Marathon County at 44.8221909, -89.5903989.

The village describes itself as approximately 53 square miles in size and the largest village by size in Wisconsin.

The village's Location page places Kronenwetter approximately 5 miles south of the City of Wausau.

Kronenwetter is bordered on the west by the Wisconsin River, split north and south by Interstate 39/Highway 51, and surrounded to the east by over 10,000 acres of county forest land, including the Kronenwetter Forest Unit.

Kronenwetter sits in the southern part of the Wausau Metropolitan Area of Marathon County.

Surface waters in the village include the Wisconsin River along the western border, the Mosinee Flowage at the far southwestern border, Bull Junior Creek, Sampson Creek, Johnson Creek, and Peplin Creek.

By acreage, land in the village is primarily classified as forest, undeveloped, and agricultural.

The 2020 Census count for the Village of Kronenwetter was 8,353 residents.

The Wisconsin DOA January 1, 2025 official estimate for Kronenwetter is 8,595 residents, with a voting-age estimate of 6,592.

The Census Bureau's July 1, 2024 estimate for Kronenwetter village is 8,435 (2020 estimates base 8,349).

The ACS 2019-2023 5-year estimate of total population for Kronenwetter village is 8,420 (margin of error plus or minus 32).

The ACS 2019-2023 5-year median age in Kronenwetter village is 39.6 years (margin of error plus or minus 1.6).

The ACS 2019-2023 5-year median household income in Kronenwetter village is $107,268 (margin of error plus or minus $12,004).

The ACS 2019-2023 5-year median value of owner-occupied housing in Kronenwetter village is $240,700 (margin of error plus or minus $9,342).

The village reports a population of 5,369 in 2000.

In 2015, 126 of the 1,013 jobs located in Kronenwetter were held by village residents, while 3,910 employed residents left the village for work each day.

Kronenwetter is governed by a Village Board of a president and six trustees elected at large, each serving a two-year term; the president presides and votes as an ex officio trustee.

The Village President is Dan Joling, whose term expires in 2027.

The village trustees are Kelly Coyle, Aaron Myszka, and Craig Mortensen (terms expiring 2028) and Jessica Stowell, Dan Lesniak, and Mary Solheim (terms expiring 2027).

The Village Administrator is James Davel.

The Village Clerk is appointed by the Village Board and serves as custodian of official records, keeps agendas and minutes, administers elections, and issues permits and licenses.

The Finance Director and Village Treasurer is John Jacobs.

Other department heads are Community Development Director Nathan Sandwick, Public Works Director Greg Ulman, Police Chief Terry McHugh, and Fire Chief Theresa O'Brien.

The Village Board's appointed bodies include the Police & Fire Commission, Plan Commission, Redevelopment Authority, Board of Review, Board of Appeals, Administrative Policy Committee, Utility Committee, and the Community Life, Infrastructure & Public Property (CLIPP) Committee.

Village Board meetings on the village's meetings hub are scheduled at 6:00 p.m. on Mondays, including August 10 and 24, September 14 and 28, and October 12, 2026, a second-and-fourth-Monday pattern.

Agendas for village boards, committees, and commissions must be posted 24 hours before a meeting; the village aims to post two to three days ahead with a packet, and posts minutes and audio afterward.

Current agendas, packets, minutes, and video are published on the village's Municode Meetings hub at kronenwetter-wi.municodemeetings.com; meetings before May 9, 2023 are in archived pages on the village site.

Official public notices (quorum notices, election notices, budget hearings, Board of Review notices) are posted on the village's Public Notices page, which lists notices from May 5, 2014 onward.

Village offices, the police department, and the fire department are in the Kronenwetter Municipal Center at 1582 Kronenwetter Drive, Kronenwetter, WI 54455 (phone 715-693-4200), open Monday through Thursday 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Friday 7:30 a.m. to noon.

The village's Code of Ordinances is published on Municode.

In late August and early September 2026 the village posted an executive summary, appendices, and exhibits regarding a 2026 Village of Kronenwetter investigation on its News Releases page.

In 2017 the Village Board adopted a vision statement: 'A growing community with a diverse economy and quality infrastructure, championed by the people of the village.'

Kronenwetter is served by two public school districts: the D.C. Everest Area School District and the Mosinee School District.

The Mosinee School District's schools are Mosinee Elementary (600 12th St), Mosinee Middle (700 High St), and Mosinee High (1000 High St), all in Mosinee.

D.C. Everest's Evergreen Elementary and its 4K Community Partnership share the address 1610 Pine Rd with a Rothschild mailing address.

In 2016-2017 the D.C. Everest district enrolled 5,878 students across 11 schools and the Mosinee district enrolled 1,998 students across three schools and a virtual academy.

The village parks page notes a school forest within the community, alongside two county forestry units.

The village markets development in four Tax Increment Districts (TIDs) located near Interstate 39/Highway 51 and the Central Wisconsin Airport.

TID #1, created in 2004, is the village's largest district at 388.22 acres, adjacent to Interstate 39 and Kowalski Road, with Business Park zoning north of Kowalski Road and General Industrial zoning south of it.

TID #2, created in 2004 and amended in 2005 and 2016, covers 331.16 acres in the southwestern part of the village adjacent to Interstate 39.

The village's one industrial park, Village Crossing Business Park on Kowalski Road, is a 388-acre park of which about 170 acres were available as of the 2019 plan; it has no rail access.

The village lists available commercial and industrial sites along Kowalski Road, Old Highway 51, Kronenwetter Drive, and Maple Ridge Road, including a TID #1 site at 1320 Kowalski Road and TID #4 at 1440 Kronenwetter Drive.

The water utility posts PFAS test results for 2022 and 2023.

Economic development inquiries go to the Community Development Director, Nathan Sandwick.

The village publishes a monthly e-newsletter, the Village View, with mid-month updates, and mails a printed newsletter twice per year.

The village links official Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Nextdoor, and LinkedIn accounts from its home page.

The Mosinee Times, a community weekly based in neighboring Mosinee, is published every Thursday by The Mosinee Times Publishing, Inc. at 407 Third Street in Mosinee.

The Kronenwetter Police Department, established in 2004, has provided 24/7 service since 2007 and has an authorized strength of twelve full-time officers, two part-time officers, a part-time property room custodian, and full- and part-time police clerks.

Police Chief Terry McHugh was promoted to chief after Chief Dan Joling retired at the end of 2016.

After hours and on weekends, calls for Kronenwetter police go through the Marathon County Sheriff's Office at 715-261-7793.

The Kronenwetter Fire Department is a paid on-call department that provides fire suppression and first responder service to the village and the Town of Guenther, and trains twice a month.

The 2019 comprehensive plan states the village contracts with South Area Fire and Rescue (SAFER) for EMS; the fire department page lists a June 12, 2024 public forum on future ambulance service, and the village Agendas & Minutes page lists an Ambulance Subcommittee, so the current EMS arrangement needs confirmation.

The 2019 plan lists the Aspirus Kronenwetter Clinic at 1881 County Road XX (family and internal medicine) and names Ascension St. Clare's Hospital in Weston as the nearest hospital.

Kronenwetter has no library building of its own; it is served by the Marathon County Public Library, whose Rothschild Area Branch (211 Grand Ave) and Joseph Dessert Branch in Mosinee (123 Main St) are each about 3 miles from the village boundary.

The village water and sewer utility draws water from two gravel-packed wells (90 and 80 feet deep, 650 gallons per minute each) and serves over 2,000 residents and businesses.

The village broke ground on a water filtration facility in August 2023 and announced in January 2025 that improved water quality was coming in 2025.

In 2007 the village completed a major expansion of the Municipal Center, adding space for the police department, an expanded fire department, and a court room.

The village has seven community parks plus two county forestry units and a school forest; municipal parks are open 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.

Village parks listed on the parks page are Buska Park, Gooding Park, Friendship Park/Bark Park, Municipal Center Park, Norm Plaza Memorial Park, Towering Pines Park, and Seville Park.

The Kronenwetter Forest Unit is a 5,000-acre county forest unit with hiking and equestrian trails and winter snowmobile trails, entered at 4420 East State Highway 153.

The Leather Camp Forest Unit is a 5,000-acre county-designated Ruffed Grouse Management Area attached to the north end of the Kronenwetter Forest Unit, used for hunting, hiking, mountain biking, and horseback riding.

Towering Pines Park at 2355 Tower Road has a playground, soccer fields, and a rentable shelter.

The village maintains an Outdoor Recreation Plan with the North Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission; the current plan covers 2026-2030.

The Village of Kronenwetter Farmers Market's 15th season runs Sundays from June 7 to October 18, 2026, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., at Buska Park, 2390 Terrebonne Drive.

The village's 2026 events include Bike & Walk for the Health of It (May 14), Community Garage Sale Weekend (June 19-21), Movie Under the Stars (June 26, July 17, August 14), National Night Out (August 4 at Towering Pines Park), Halloween Trick-or-Treat (October 31, 4 to 7 p.m.), and the Spook the Yard and Deck the Yard decorating contests.

The 2019 plan lists a Run For the Fallen event honoring first responders who died on September 11, 2001 among the village's annual events.

Around 1855 a Native American man named Keeler dug a canal rerouting Bull Jr. Creek to power a sawmill, and the settlement became known as Keelerville.

German immigrant Sebastian Kronenwetter bought the sawmill in 1857 and was elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1885.

On November 11, 1886, the eastern section of the Town of Mosinee formed the new Town of Kronenwetter.

Around 1910 the Worzella brothers bought 26,000 acres and built the Polish community of Peplin near County Highway X and East State Highway 153, recruiting settlers through Polish-language advertising; area sawmills closed in 1930.

Voters approved incorporating the west portion of Kronenwetter as a village on November 5, 2002, effective November 20, 2002; the remaining town was annexed on February 24, 2003 and the town dissolved.

Before incorporation, portions of the former town were annexed by the City of Mosinee, including the area of the Central Wisconsin Airport, and by the Village of Rothschild.

As of 2019 no structures in the village were listed on the National Register of Historic Places; three items were on the Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, including the 16th Road Culvert and the Elm Grove School.