The historic Levitan Scale was formally presented Sunday morning to the Swiss Historical Village & Museum during Harvest Fest in New Glarus. Linda J. Gebhardt of the Community Foundation of Southern Wisconsin presented the artifact to Amy Legler of the New Glarus Historical Society.

The century-old spring balance scale once sat inside Levitan & Stuessy Mercantile, a downtown general store operated by Sol Levitan and Henry Stuessy. Levitan, a Jewish immigrant who began his Wisconsin career as a traveling peddler, later moved to Madison, became a banker and served multiple terms as Wisconsin state treasurer.

The mercantile stood at 523 1st St., where Anderson Mall is now located. The building, which also housed a bowling alley upstairs, was destroyed in the Jan. 18, 1959, downtown fire. The scale survived and eventually became part of the collection of the late Linda Schiesser, a New Glarus artist known for her Swiss paper-cutting work and her dedication to preserving local history.