New Glarus is not short on familiar stories. The Swiss colony, the chalet-style buildings, the cheese, the festivals and the brewery are all part of the public identity of a village that has spent generations explaining itself to visitors.

But some of the most startling New Glarus stories are not the ones printed on postcards. They are the darker, stranger and more improbable details buried in timelines, museum collections, markers and local history — the kind of facts that can still make a lifelong resident stop and look twice.

1. Epidemics Nearly Broke the Young Colony

In 1852, only seven years after the first Swiss settlers arrived, scarlet fever swept through New Glarus and killed 17 children. Two years later, the colony was hit again, this time by cholera, which killed 22 adults. For a small settlement still trying to survive its first decade in Wisconsin, those losses were not abstract history. They struck families, farms, churches and the fragile social structure of a community still building itself from scratch.