The Wausau-Ontonagon Road

This road began as a set of foot paths along the Wisconsin River, which were gradually widened to wagon roads (sleighs in the winter). Starting in the early 1850s and for about 25 years until the railroad reached the Upper Peninsula, there was weekly mail service between Wausau and Ontonagon. However around about that time other commerce began to use the road. Cattle driven from central Wisconsin farms to supply the copper mining communities were among the first major users of the road before the Civil War. During the Civil War a bill was passed by Congress to improve the road to be suitable to military wagon traffic. This was one of several improvements over the next twenty years.

Stage line to King's

George H. Ripley was a mail carrier and stage line proprietor who ran a service daily to King's, timed to connect with the arriving and departing trains of the CM&StP trains in Merrill. He is listed with his wife in the 1880 census as a resident of the settlement at Grandfather.