Town of McMillan, Marathon County, Wisconsin: Place Profile

No ranked list of major employers located inside the Town of McMillan was found in a fetchable primary source.

The municipality is the Town of McMillan, a civil town (county subdivision) in Marathon County, Wisconsin, Census GEOID 5507346975.

The town covers 33.958 square miles of land and 0.202 square miles of water, with a Census internal point near 44.734444, -90.130366.

USGS GNIS records a populated place named McMillan in Marathon County (feature 1844192, at 44.7421866, -90.1634651), a separate feature from the civil Town of McMillan; the town's history places the former Village of McMillan (1893 to 1925) in sections 17 and 20.

Two similarly named records in the Wausau Wire footprint belong to other places: McMillan Memorial Library is a public library in Wisconsin Rapids (Wood County), and the David McMillan House on the National Register is in Stevens Point (Portage County).

The town lies in southwestern Marathon County, bounded by the Town of Eau Pleine to the north, the Town of Spencer to the west, the Town of Day to the east, and the City and Town of Marshfield to the south.

The town is survey township T26N R3E, almost six miles square, stretching north from the Marshfield city limits to within about a mile of the Village of Stratford; the town reports it has lost 140 acres to the City of Marshfield by annexation.

The 2020 Census counted 2,074 residents; the Wisconsin DOA January 1, 2025 official estimate is 2,099, with an estimated voting-age population of 1,564.

The ACS 2019-2023 5-year estimate of total population is 2,111 (margin of error +/-303).

The ACS 2019-2023 5-year median age is 47.5 years (margin of error +/-5.2).

The ACS 2019-2023 5-year median household income is $110,363 (margin of error +/-$8,560, 2023 dollars).

The ACS 2019-2023 5-year median value of owner-occupied housing is $276,700 (margin of error +/-$17,431).

The town's own history page lists population of 1,255 in 1970, 1,433 in 1980, 1,694 in 1990 and 1,860 in 2000, and says the town has grown rapidly since 1970.

McMillan is governed by an elected five-member town board: a chairman and four supervisors. Residents voted to establish the five-person board in 1989.

The town chairman is Debbie Derfus, who also serves as highway (roads) supervisor. The supervisors are Nicole Forst, Dave Swenson, Jeff Stueland and Rod Bauer.

The town clerk is Norma Pentico ([email address], 715-389-1338), who holds office hours Mondays and Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to noon and by appointment.

The town treasurer is Donna Siltala; property tax payments go to the treasurer at the clerk's office in the town garage through January 30.

The McMillan Town Hall is at 113904 Elm Tree Road, Marshfield, WI 54449, at the intersection of Galvin Avenue and Elm Street as the town's FAQ gives it; the fire station sits south of Elm Tree Road and the highway garage north of the town hall.

Town Board meetings are held the second Monday of each month at 7:00 p.m. and the Plan Commission meets the fourth Monday at 6:00 p.m., both at the McMillan Town Hall unless otherwise stated.

Agendas are posted at the town hall, the This and That Wisconsin Store (Resource Recovery), and the Belvedere Supper Club, and on the town website; residents can also sign up to receive Town Board agendas by email.

The official website is townofmcmillan.gov, which replaced the earlier townofmcmillan.com domain.

The town posts its meeting agendas and minutes on a Town Board Meeting page whose agenda list runs from January 4, 2021 through a special town meeting on September 15, 2026, including special, joint, budget and annual meetings, with links to minutes back to 2010.

The 2026 annual town meeting was held April 21, 2026.

The town adopted Ordinance 2026-01 regulating Wind Energy Systems (Chapter 507, posted under a file name marking it adopted May 12, 2026), and separately approved ordinances on Solar Energy Systems (Chapter 511) and Battery Energy Storage Systems and Substations (Chapter 515).

McMillan is represented on the Marathon County Board by the supervisors for Districts 27 (Thomas R. Seubert) and 29 (Chris Dickinson), in the state Senate by Cory Tomczyk (29th District) and in the Assembly by John Spiros (86th District).

McMillan adopted county zoning in 1972 and is one of eight Marathon County towns that have adopted Farmland Preservation Zoning, which sets a 35-acre minimum lot size.

The Town of McMillan and the City of Marshfield established a Cooperative Boundary Agreement in January 2002; Marshfield lets the town use city-connected hydrants for fire protection if needed.

Three school districts serve the town: most of it lies in the Marshfield School District, the northeast section is in the Stratford School District, and the northwest corner is in the Spencer School District.

Marshfield-district students from McMillan attend Grant Elementary School (425 West Upham St., Marshfield), then Marshfield Middle and Marshfield High School; Stratford-district students attend Stratford Elementary and the combined Stratford middle/high school; Spencer-district students attend Spencer schools on School Street in the Village of Spencer.

The first public school district in McMillan was established in 1881. Between 1892 and 1957 five country schoolhouses, mostly one-room schools for grades 1 through 8, were established in the town; the rural schools were later dissolved and the area annexed to the Marshfield, Stratford and Spencer districts beginning in 1953.

Agriculture in the town is mostly dairy, associated crops and agribusiness: several large dairy farms operate, most with fewer than 300 animal units and four with 300 to 1,000, and the town holds one dairy plant and one meat plant.

In 2018, 1,161 town residents were employed; education and health services was the largest sector, which the plan attributes to the nearby Marshfield Clinic Health System, and more residents work in the City of Marshfield (Wood County) than in the Wausau area.

Alliant Energy's proposed Hub City Wind Farm, 150 megawatts from 28 to 38 turbines, would sit in the Towns of Day, McMillan, Eau Pleine, Cleveland, Green Valley and Brighton.

In April 2026 the Marathon County Board created the Alternative Energy Project Local Impact Advisory Committee in response to Hub City Wind; it met from May to July 13, 2026 and held a public forum June 17, 2026 at the Lake View Conference Center in Wausau.

The 2021 comprehensive plan sets a goal to identify future commercial areas along State Highway 97 north of Marshfield; its community survey found 64 percent of respondents agreed that commercial and industrial growth along STH 97 is desirable.

The Hub City Times, a Marshfield-area paper, covers McMillan; its April 9, 2026 story on Hub City Wind carried a 'TOWN OF MCMILLAN' dateline.

Wausau Pilot & Review has covered the Hub City Wind debate across the six southwestern Marathon County towns, including McMillan.

The town publishes a newsletter twice a year; the Spring 2026 edition carried reports from the chairman, fire chief, park, recycling and plan commission.

The McMillan Volunteer Fire Department responds from its station at 113901 Elm Tree Road (non-emergency 715-389-2067). Kevin Schmidtke was appointed fire chief in June 2025.

For structure fires, a mutual-aid call goes to the Hewitt or Stratford fire departments, with the Town of Lincoln and Spencer departments added on large fires; residents are billed for time and materials on fire calls.

The McMillan First Responders, formed in the 1990s, now number 8 EMTs and 1 Emergency Medical Responder; the City of Marshfield ambulance responds with them and transports patients.

The town has no police department of its own: 911 calls route to the Marathon County Sheriff's dispatch center in Wausau, and a sheriff's deputy responds to police calls.

The town describes itself as a member of the Everett Roehl Marshfield Public Library; its history timeline records that in 1999 a state-law change let McMillan withdraw from the Marathon County Library System and join the Marshfield library.

There is no hospital in the town; the comprehensive plan points to Marshfield Medical Center, the Marshfield Clinic Health System flagship at 611 N. St. Joseph Ave. in Marshfield.

Town addresses, including the town hall's, use Marshfield, WI 54449 mailing addresses; no USPS retail unit inside the town was confirmed from a USPS source.

Weekly cart garbage pickup runs on Fridays (Saturday in holiday weeks) with monthly recycling, partly funded through the Northwestern Recycling Commission of the towns of Cameron, Lincoln, Marshfield, Richfield, Rock and McMillan; Waste Management is the hauler.

McMillan Marsh Wildlife Area covers about 6,500 acres of mostly shallow marsh and shrub wetland, with a popular 5.5-mile seasonal bike trail open May 1 to August 31; it lies a short drive north of Marshfield.

The town's history page counts 2,224.8 acres of the wildlife area, in sections 7, 18, 19 and 30, with public parking off Mann Road and Marsh Road.

USGS GNIS records McMillan Marsh (swamp, feature 1584508), McMillan Reservoir (2770688), McMillan Creek (1574765) and South McMillan Creek (2830240) in Marathon County.

The McMillan Community Park next to the town hall has a heated pavilion that residents can rent year-round ($150 per rental plus a $100 refundable deposit from January 1, 2026), a ball diamond and playground.

About 15.2 miles of snowmobile trails cross the town, maintained by the Spencer, Little Rose, Stratford Snowrunners and Rozellville clubs.

The McMillan Fall Fest was set for September 19, 2026; the fire department held its first fall festival in 1989.

An annual tire collection for residents of the towns of Cameron, Marshfield, McMillan, Lincoln, Richfield and Rock runs the last Saturday in April; in 2026 it was April 25 at Pankratz Trucking.

In 1874, B.F. and Charles V. McMillan built a sawmill on the Little Eau Pleine River about five miles north of Marshfield, the origin of the settlement that gave the town its name.

The town was chartered as a township in 1888; a separate Village of McMillan was incorporated in 1893 and dissolved in 1925, after the sawmill closed in 1911.

During the early to mid 1900s a small settlement called Riverside, east of the Little Eau Pleine River on what is now Highway 97 near County Highway T, had a saloon, grocery, feed mill, blacksmith shop and grist mill.

On June 22, 2002, 10 to 12 inches of rain fell in about four hours, washing out 20 to 30 road locations and damaging an estimated half of the town's homes; the town calls it one of the most devastating days in its history.

The town adopted village powers in 1960 and built a new fire station in 1995 at a cost of $350,000.

State Highway 97 runs southwest to northeast through the town from Marshfield toward Stratford; County Highways C, E and T carry the other main traffic. The 2021 plan counts 72.77 miles of road, including 51.31 miles of local roads.

Staadt Avenue between County Highway C and Highway 97 was put out for bids with a grant covering 90 percent of cost, and the town posted that Staadt Road was closed for construction starting June 30, 2026.