Green County, with its County seat of Monroe, and villages of New Glarus and Monticello, has long held a distinctly Swiss identity. It hasn’t always been that way. Swiss immigrants didn’t start arriving here until the mid-19th century.

European settlers were attracted to the southern Wisconsin Territory in the early 1800s by discovery of lead deposits. The rich farmlands and river ways, including the Sugar and Pecatonica, further attracted Yankee settlers from the east. Wheat was the major agricultural enterprise in those days. 

What is now Green County was in 1857 split off from the larger Iowa County of the Wisconsin Territory.  There was debate whether it was to be named “Green” after its lush vegetation, or “Greene,” after General Nathaniel Greene, who led the Southern Campaign of the Revolutionary War. With the insistence of area representative, Wm. Boyle, it became “Green.” The City of Monroe was incorporated in 1882.

It was several years of failed crops during the 1840s in Canton Glarus, Switzerland that led to this area’s Swiss heritage. In 1845, Canton Glarus authorities saw emigration to America as solution to its poverty. They charged two of its residents, Fridolin Streiff and Nicolas Duerst, with the responsibility of finding land in North America that would be suitable. After exploration that took them through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, they found a two-square mile site along southern Wisconsin’s Little Sugar River. The site was available, and with its lush grass and hilltops, it reminded them of home.

The very next year, immigrants from Canton Glarus arrived to the new land. During the first year, they survived on fish and wild game, and men found employment in lead mines in Mineral Point. The next year more families followed. Many of the men had skills as carpenters, mechanics, and farmers that were useful in the new settlement. Drovers from Ohio brought some cows to the area and enough were purchased for each family to have a cow. These provided milk that the Swiss women made into cheese. 

An immigrant from Canton Bern, Nicolas Gerber, who came to Oneida County, NY, in 1857, before coming to Green County in 1868 is credited with building and equipping the county’s first cheese factory, a Limburger factory. A year later he started the first “Swiss Cheese” factory. What we know as “Swiss Cheese” is actually Emmentaler cheese, named for its origin in Canton Bern’s Emme River Valley.

The Swiss farmers initially did not respond favorably to the factory system of making cheese, believing it to be impractical. But as the system soon proved to be successful and provided a good market for milk, numbers of small cheese factories grew dramatically. With a fungus that caused failure of wheat crops, and the success of cheese factories, the agriculture of this area changed forever — from wheat to cattle and dairy farming.

The cheese factories were small, limited in size to accommodate neighboring farmers to haul milk to the factory daily with horse and wagon. By end of century, there were some 340 neighborhood cheese factories in Green County. With advances in transportation and economies of scale in production, the trend to fewer and larger inevitably occurred in cheese production. Today there are twelve large cheese factories run by award-winning master cheesemakers in Green County, producing a wide variety of award-winning cheeses — feta, gouda, grand chu, brick, cheddar, and many others, including, of course, Emmentaler style Swiss. Green County hosts the nation’s only remaining limburger factory. 

Most of the early Swiss settlers were from Canton Glarus. But following Berner Nicolas Gerber and the success of Emmentaler cheese, Immigrants from other German-speaking cantons, many from Canton Bern, soon followed. In addition to Gerber, three other Berners, Jacob Karlen, John Boss, and Jacob Regez, were significant in development of the cheese industry. Carl Marty from Canton Thurgau is another immigrant who left his mark on the local cheese industry.

It was during the latter 1800s that the large influx of Swiss immigrants, including my four grandparents, came to Green County, bringing with them their arts and traditions of Swiss music with the Alpine horn and yodeling, Swiss wrestling, flag throwing, talerschwingen (coin spinning), wood carving, and sewing and stitchery. 

Another German and Swiss tradition brought to the upper Midwest was the Turner (German for gymnast) Hall that served as community centers in addition to places for physical activities. Monroe’s beautiful Turner Hall, with its Emmentaler style architecture, is testament to that tradition. It plays a key role in maintaining and enhancing our Swiss heritage, including music and Swiss cuisine.

Many communities throughout the U.S. celebrate their Swiss heritage, but New Glarus surely deserves the title of “America’s Little Switzerland.” It is the locus of the Swiss Center of North America and the Swiss Historical Village. Its annual attractions have long included the Heidi festival, the Wilhelm Tell festival, polka fests, October fests, and much more. Visitors from Switzerland express their amazement at the continuation of Swiss heritage in this area.

Although Monroe’s early European settlers were Yankees from the East, and the Swiss were relative latecomers, the Swiss emblem with its white cross is now a part of the logo of Monroe that bills itself as the Swiss Cheese Capital of America. The mascot of Monroe High School is what else, “The Cheesemakers.”

In addition to cheese, we have several producers of Swiss style pastries and meats and sausages, including the popular landjaegers. And, of course, Green County hosts two major breweries.

Monroe hosts the National Historic Cheesemaking Center that doubles as the Green County Welcome Center. It contains an interesting museum of cheese making equipment. Of great pride is the transplant of an original small farm cheese factory, the Imobersteg factory that retains original equipment. Stepping inside, one can experience the slogan of the museum, “an era that was, that will never be again.”  

As this is written, the biennial celebration of Cheese Days is underway with its celebration of dancing, yodeling, music, and great food. This celebration includes the largest parade in the Midwest. 

These and many more Swiss customs and traditions remain the Swiss heritage that continues to define this part of southern Wisconsin.

— John Waelti’s column appears monthly in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.