Business Boomed at Big Bull Falls

The earliest American settlers were drawn to Big Bull Falls for the timber business, but other businesses soon sprouted. Lumbermen and their families needed supplies and services. Soon after George Stevens built the first sawmill Wausau began to grow.

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Why is it called Big Bull Falls?

If you were a french voyageur in the 1600s or arrived with George Stevens in 1838, you would have heard and seen large rapids churning and bubbling here in front of you. Without dams, the river was much shallower than ...

Big Bull Falls • Birthplace of Wausau

In the early 1800s, timber supplies were coming to an end in the eastern United States. The Westward Expansion—the settlement of the prairies and mountainous regions west of the Mississippi—was driving the hunger for more timber with which to build ...

Big Bull Falls

On this site known as

Big Bull Falls

Wisconsin Pinery

now the City of Wausau

George Stevens

pioneer lumberman

established the first

white settlement

1839

This tablet placed by

Wausau Chapter

Daughters of the

American Revolution

1929

[DAR insignia]

Marker can be reached from Scott Street (State Highway 52) near Washington Street.

Courtesy hmdb.org