Marathon County Historical Museum

The Marathon County Historical Museum is museum located in Wausau, Marathon County, Wisconsin, United States. It is located in the Cyrus Carpenter Yawkey House, a house listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. The house is a significant example of Classical Revival architecture.YawkeyThe house was the home of prominent citizen, Cyrus C. Yawkey. Yawkey was a co-owner of a firm in Saginaw, Michigan before moving to Wausau to purchase large tracts of land for lumber. He later owned numerous local businesses, was a member of the Wisconsin Legislature, and led the Wausau Group, which invested in new businesses like paper mills around Wausau as pine timber dwindled.The house was built in 1900 to 1901, designed in Beaux-Arts Classical style by Van Ryn & DeGelleke of Milwaukee. Six years later Yawkey hired prominent Prairie School architect George W. Maher to remodel the house. He remodeled the first floor interior in a style closer to Prairie School, added a sun porch, and added two stories to the back of the structure. Yawkey died in 1943. His wife Alice lived in the house until she died in 1953. Their daughter, philanthropist Leigh Yawkey Woodson, donated the house to the Marathon County Historical Society.