RHINELANDER

city, seat (1885) of Oneida county, northern Wisconsin, U.S., at the confluence of the Wisconsin and Pelican rivers, 45 miles (72 km) north-northeast of Wausau. It is surrounded by a heavy concentration of lakes, and the Nicolet National Forest lies to the east. A focus of pioneer logging in the late 1850s, it was incorporated in 1894 and was named for F.W. Rhinelander, president of the Milwaukee, Lakeshore and Western Railroad. The city subsequently developed as a trading centre for a busy year-round resort area. The Rhinelander Logging Museum in Pioneer Park includes a replica of a lumber camp and displays the Five Spot, the last narrow-gauge locomotive (built 1879) to work Wisconsin's North Woods. The museum also houses a replica of hodag, a grotesque animal once said to have inhabited the area but exposed as a photographic hoax. Aside from tourism, the economy is based on the production of lumber, paper (glassine and waxed paper), high-speed drills, potatoes, and cranberries. Rhinelander is the seat of Nicolet Area Technical College (1967). Pop. (1990) 7,382; (1998 est.) 7,721.