City of Neillsville, Clark County, Wisconsin: Place Profile

No CivicClerk tenant was found for Neillsville; the neillsvillewi.api.civicclerk.com Events endpoint returned HTTP 404.

Marshfield Medical Center-Neillsville, a hospital with an emergency department and urgent care at N3708 River Avenue, is the city's largest visible institutional employer; a ranked list of Neillsville employers with headcounts was not found on a fetched source.

The municipality is the City of Neillsville, an incorporated city in Clark County, Wisconsin (Census place GEOID 5555800).

Neillsville is the county seat of Clark County; the county government's hours and address are listed at 517 Court Street, Neillsville.

Neillsville lies entirely in Clark County, and the WI DOA municipal estimates file lists no town or village of the same name, so this profile binds only to the city (GEOID 5555800).

Neillsville covers 2.745 square miles of land and 0.134 square miles of water, with an internal point near 44.560316, -90.590781.

USGS GNIS records Neillsville as a populated place in Clark County at 44.559962, -90.5962498 (GNIS 1570146).

O'Neill Creek runs through the city, and the Black River flows past it; the city promotes paddling and canoeing on the Black River.

The 2020 census counted 2,384 residents in the City of Neillsville.

The Wisconsin DOA January 1, 2025 official estimate for the City of Neillsville is 2,360.

The Census Bureau's July 1, 2024 estimate for Neillsville city is 2,375 (2020 estimates base 2,387).

The city's own population page lists 2,680 residents in 1990, 2,731 in 2000, 2,463 in 2010 and 2,320 in 2020; the 2020 figure there does not match the 2020 census count of 2,384.

The ACS 2019-2023 5-year estimate of total population is 2,314 (margin of error +/-249).

The ACS 2019-2023 5-year median age in Neillsville is 43.1 years (margin of error +/-4.5).

The ACS 2019-2023 5-year median household income is $58,239 (margin of error +/-$10,698).

The ACS 2019-2023 5-year median value of owner-occupied homes is $111,300 (margin of error +/-$9,209).

Neillsville has a mayor and a five-ward Common Council, one council member per ward.

The Mayor of Neillsville is Dewey G. Poeschel, whose term expires in April 2028.

Council members are William E. Neville IV (1st Ward), Daniel M. Clough (2nd Ward, also chair of the Commission on Public Works/Utilities), Barb A. Petkovsek (3rd Ward), Donna M. Pavlac (4th Ward) and Rolly S. Gelhaus (5th Ward).

The Common Council meets on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month at 7:00 p.m. in the Council Room of City Hall, following the Commission on Public Works/Utilities at 6:45 p.m.

Debbie Winder is the City Clerk-Treasurer and Michelle Grap is Deputy Clerk-Treasurer; the office is at City Hall, 106 W. Division Street, (715) 743-2105, open 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. weekdays.

Luke Friemoth is the city's Administrator and Director of Public Works.

The city's official website is neillsville-wi.com; City Hall is at 106 W. Division Street, Neillsville, WI 54456.

Agendas, packets, minutes and some audio and video post to the city's Agendas & Minutes repository, which files each public body separately (Common Council, Planning Commission, Utilities Commission, Airport Commission, Library Board and others); notices post under News & Notices.

Jim Mankowski is Neillsville's Chief of Police; the department is at 118 W. Fifth Street.

The city is served by the Neillsville School District (NCES 5510350), a PK-12 district of 3 schools with 847 students and 63.16 classroom teachers (FTE) in 2024-2025, headquartered at 614 E. 5th Street.

Public schools with a Neillsville address are Neillsville Elementary and Neillsville Middle (504 E. 5th Street) and Neillsville High (401 Center Street).

The school district posts Board of Education meeting dates, agendas and minutes, and public notices, on neillsville.k12.wi.us.

St. John's Lutheran School, a WELS school, is at 805 W. 5th Street; Chippewa Valley Technical College runs a Neillsville center in the city's industrial park.

The municipally owned Neillsville Industrial Park on U.S. Highway 10 covers 67 acres, with 23.9 acres available and 30 adjacent acres planned for industrial use.

Clark County had 779 business establishments and 9,517 paid employees in 2023, of which 3,947 worked in manufacturing.

Xcel Energy supplies electricity and WE Energies natural gas; water and wastewater are municipal, with a wastewater facility built in 1998.

Central Wisconsin Broadcasting, a family-owned group, runs WCCN 107.5 FM, WPKG 92.7 FM and WCCN 1370 AM from studios in the Wisconsin Pavilion at 1201 E. Division Street, and publishes local news, sports and obituaries at cwbradio.com.

The FCC FM query lists Neillsville as the community of license for WCCN-FM (107.5 MHz), WPKG (92.7 MHz) and translator W253CN (98.5 MHz), all licensed to Central Wisconsin Broadcasting, Inc.

The Clark County Press (clarkcopress.com) presents itself as a news source for the Clark County area; its front page, fetched 2026-09-19, leads with items from early January 2024.

Marshfield Medical Center-Neillsville at N3708 River Avenue offers an emergency department and urgent care, surgery, OB/GYN, imaging and other services, with an outpatient center in Loyal.

Family Health Center - Neillsville Dental Center, a HRSA-supported health center site, is at 8 Boon Boulevard.

The Neillsville Public Library at 409 Hewett Street began in 1879 as the Neillsville Library Association; its Carnegie building was funded with a $10,000 allotment and designed by George Awsumb, with a 1994 addition. Janay Ziebell is Library Director.

The Neillsville Area Fire Department has 29 volunteer firefighters and is a cooperative of the City of Neillsville and the towns of Pine Valley, Weston, Levis, Grant, Seif and Hewett; Matt Meyer is Fire Chief.

The Neillsville Municipal Ambulance Service has 24 EMTs and is a cooperative of twelve Clark County municipalities, including the city and the Village of Granton.

The Neillsville Post Office is at 619 Hewett Street (ZIP 54456); the former Neillsville Post Office building was listed on the National Register on October 24, 2000.

Neillsville sits at the intersection of U.S. Highway 10 and State Highway 73, about 29 miles from Interstate 94 at Osseo or Black River Falls.

The city's Location page lists Wausau at a distance of 70 (miles implied; the page gives no unit), with Eau Claire at 45.

Neillsville Municipal Airport (KVIQ), three miles east of the city on U.S. Highway 10, was built in 1973 and has a 3,400 by 60 foot blacktop runway (09/27).

The city lists Bruce Mound Winter Ski Area, Levis Mound Recreational Area, Lake Arbutus, Mead Lake, Rock Dam Lake, ATV and snowmobile trails, and the Black River among its outdoor recreation.

The Highground Veterans Memorial Park, four miles west of Neillsville, began in 1984 as the Wisconsin Vietnam Veterans Memorial Project and is now a 155-acre park with a museum and four miles of hiking trails.

Neillsville Heritage Days is held the second weekend in July.

Chatty Belle, billed as The World's Largest Talking Cow, stands 16 feet tall at the shoulders; Central Wisconsin Broadcasting brought her to her current location in 1967.

The Wisconsin Pavilion, the state's building at the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair, now houses the Central Wisconsin Broadcasting studios and was listed on the National Register on February 14, 2012.

Sixteen National Register listings are recorded under Neillsville, including the Neillsville Downtown Historic District (2000, boundary increase 2004), the 1897 Clark County Jail (1978), the Omaha Hotel (2013) and the Neillsville Standpipe (2013).

The 1897 Clark County Jail Museum at 215 E. Fifth Street is permanently closed and is moving its collection to the History Room at 442 Hewett Street.

James O'Neill's party arrived around 1845 to build a sawmill on the Black River; the settlement, first called O'Neill's Mill, became county seat in 1854, was platted in 1855 and incorporated in 1882.