Rice Lake had its beginning in , when the Knapp, Stout and company, famed Menomonie logging firm, constructed a storage dam on the site of an earlier Indian village and a wild rice bed, taking the name of the community from that location. A mill was started at the dam in by M. Heller, who was the first permanent settler to movehis family here. Heller was also in charge of the first store, hotel, and blacksmith shop, which made the settlement the center for northern operations of Knapp, Stout and Company until the large stands of white pines in the area were exhausted.
Carpenter as editor. In the same year, the first school opened in a frame building also designed to be the county courthouse, with Miss Monona Cheyney as the teacher. The original plat of the city was made in under auspices of the Knapp, Stout firm, including foot wide thoroughfare which is still the heart of the business district. In the Chippewa Falls and Northern Railroad built its track through the city. It is now a part of the Soo Line System. Montieth became the first mayor in that year.
A volunteer fire department was formed in , and electric lights and water utility were established by the lumbering firms in , being taken over as a municipal utilities soon after The city has maintained a four year high school since , and established the Rice Lake Vocational School in , an institution now expanded to more than students, and now named the Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College. The city library, first opened in , occupied the Carnegie financed structure from until , when it relocated to its present location on North Main Street.
Rice Lake is located in Barron County in northwestern Wisconsin, serving a primary retail trade area of approximately a 50 mile radius as the largest community between Eau Claire, 60 miles south, and Superior, miles to the north.
It is just miles northeast of Minneapolis and st. The area is famous for fishing, hunting, and sports as well as being a popular summer resort area. The Rice Lake Area Chamber of Commerce is a private, voluntary, not-for-profit membership organization of businesses and professional persons dedicated to improving the economic and community environment of the Rice Lake area and fostering the development of quality business growth and prosperity.
