Heritage

Stories and archival features focused on New Glarus history, from early settlement and Swiss heritage to long-forgotten events, buildings, and people. This section preserves the community’s past while connecting it to the present.

105 posts
Heritage
Paid

Historic Photo: The Wilhelm Tell Usherettes

A historic photograph of 22 New Glarus Wilhelm Tell Usherettes captures an earlier generation of a tradition that began with the pageant in 1938, added its colorful cantonal costumes in 1940 and continues with young performers today.

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3 Min
by Todd Klassy
Paid

Inside the Old New Glarus Grade School

For nearly a century New Glarus children climbed its staircases, crowded its hallways, and learned penmanship, speed reading and elocution in classrooms beneath ceilings that seemed impossibly high. The former school was more than a building. It became a warehouse of community memories.

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9 Min
by Todd Klassy
Paid

Historic Photo: A Different Highway 69 at New Glarus Woods

A 1936 DNR archive photo captures New Glarus Woods just two years after it became a state park, showing an earlier Highway 69 alignment, a simple roadside sign and a landscape that remains surprisingly recognizable nearly 90 years later.

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3 Min
by Todd Klassy
Paid

Historic Photo: An ‘Up to Date’ New Glarus Dairy

A postcard mailed from New Glarus in 1912 captures a prosperous dairy farm, dozens of cattle and even an early automobile at a moment when Green County’s booming cheese industry was transforming farms — and New Glarus itself.

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6 Min
by Todd Klassy
Paid

The Little Swiss Village on the Hill That Almost Was

Decades before New Glarus Brewing Company transformed the hill south of town, Swiss immigrant Robbie Schneider nearly built a $6.2 million resort there, complete with a cheese factory, chalet buildings, Swiss artisans and even a Matterhorn.

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6 Min
by Todd Klassy
Paid

The Remarkable Journey That Created New Glarus

Saturday marks 181 years since the 1845 arrival traditionally recognized as New Glarus’ birthday — the end of an extraordinary four-month journey from Switzerland that survived storms, sickness, hunger, confusion and repeated moments when the plan nearly unraveled.

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4 Min
by Todd Klassy
Paid

From 50 Cheese Orders to 100 Years

Founded with about 50 mail-order cheese packages in 1926, Colony Brands enters its second century as a billion-dollar, family-owned enterprise with deep roots in Green County’s cheesemaking culture and the Swiss settlement at New Glarus.

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7 Min
by Todd Klassy
Paid

Historic Photo: Robbie Schneider Behind the Bar

A circa-1972 photograph captures Robert “Robbie” Schneider serving beer at the New Glarus Hotel, surrounded by liquor bottles, old advertising and Swiss details that reflected both the hotel and the tourism identity he helped cultivate in New Glarus.

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3 Min
by Todd Klassy
Paid

The Forgotten Airport of New Glarus

A private grass runway near Airport and Elmer roads connected New Glarus to aviation’s early years, where local pilot Herman Lufi carried the village’s first airmail, trained as a mechanic and survived a dramatic 1951 crash at night.

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6 Min
by Todd Klassy
Paid

Historic Photo: New Glarus Takes on ‘The Music Man’

A 1981 New Glarus High School production of “The Music Man” brought students together on stage as residents of fictional River City, Iowa, complete with period costumes, painted storefronts and some familiar New Glarus faces from more than four decades ago.

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2 Min
by Todd Klassy
Paid

Before WEKZ: When Radiowaves First Reached New Glarus

Long before Green County had a station of its own, New Glarus residents could hear weather forecasts from Madison, music from Chicago and voices carried across the countryside by one of the most transformative inventions of the 20th century.

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8 Min
by Todd Klassy
Paid

Historic Photo: Citizens Bank in 1910

A 1910 photograph of the Citizens Bank captures a moment when New Glarus was growing into a prosperous dairy and commercial center — and shows how architecture, streets, utilities and nearby businesses reflected the village’s ambitions.

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3 Min
by Todd Klassy

Showing 12 of 105 total posts

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