History

The Wisconsin River valley at Wausau was logged extensively in the second half of the nineteenth century, and the timber industry funded the initial growth of the city. The transition from logging to paper manufacturing — Wausau’s forests gave way to pulp and paper mills that used the river’s waterpower — established a more durable industrial base, and the city’s prosperity by the 1920s was reflected in a downtown commercial district of brick buildings that matched the ambitions of larger Wisconsin cities.

The Grand Theater of 1927 was part of a wave of Wisconsin theater construction during the middle decade of the twentieth century, as the film industry’s growth drove investment in purpose-built cinemas in cities of every size. Wausau’s theater was unusual in its architectural ambition: the Italian Renaissance Revival design, with its terra cotta ornament and symmetrical facade, represented a level of investment that a city of Wausau’s size did not always achieve.

The Grand survived the decline of single-screen cinema through community preservation efforts and was eventually operated by a nonprofit organization committed to maintaining it as a performing arts venue for the Marathon County region. The theater presents a mix of Broadway touring productions, concerts, and local performing arts organizations, serving a regional audience that draws from across central Wisconsin.