The first cabin in Monroe was built in 1835, just prior to the designation of Wisconsin as a territory. It developed in two separate
areas, one called Monroe and the other New Mexico, the latter centered in the present Lincoln Park area. Monroe was located where
Spring Square is now located (the parking lot at 16th Avenue and 12th Street). Rivalry between the two was keen, and both competed
for selection as the county seat. Eventually they were consolidated and the village was incorporated in 1839. The official charter
as a municipality came in 1882.
Known as the Swiss Cheese Capital of the U.S., the Monroe/Green County area is famous for its many
delicious varieties of cheese. Swiss Colony, the large mail order company, was started in 1926 when a Monroe business man, Ray Kubly,
acted on a suggestion from his University of Wisconsin professor.
Monroe Origins...
In the 1820's, the lead mining boom in the
Fever River region brought a stream of miners up the Mississippi River and into the previously unpopulated area of what is now southerwestern
Wisconsin. Galena, Illinois, was the first mining center, but others quickly followed, including Mineral Point, Platteville, Shullsburg,
and Dodgeville. Between these major settlements were the actual "diggings" -- the name given to the miners' claims. The Sugar River
Diggings in the town of Exeter, and the Skinner Diggings in the town of Monroe, both discovered in the late 1820s, were the first
deposits of lead to be mined in Green County. Several other diggings, located mainly in the western section of the county, were discovered
and worked soon after, but most were rapidly abandoned.
Although the mining of lead brought the first settlers to the county,
the availability of quality farmland kept them there and enticed others to join them. The early settlers were also attracted by the
water systems available in Green County, primarily the Sugar and Pecatonica Rivers, both of which flow into the Rock River. A land
office was opened in Mineral Point in 1834, causing a rush of settlers in the years 1835-36. The majority of these settlers came from
Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania or Virginia.
Most settlers were interested only in rich soil, not laying out townsites, but Jacob
Andrick entered a claim and platted a site for the town of New Mexico in 1835 (the reason why he chose this name is unclear). New
Mexico was located near the site of present-day Lincoln Park. Several years later, the town site of Monroe was platted by Joseph Payne,
near the present location of the courthouse square.
In 1836, the territorial legislature designated the County of Green -- which
was named for Revolutionary War hero General Nathanial Greene, and the lush vegetation found in the region. A seat of government was
needed for the county, and both New Mexico and Monroe vied for the honor. The choice was "resolved" in 1839, when Payne, Javis Rattan,
Jacob Lybrand, and Williams S. Russell, who owned the nucleus of land on which Monroe was to develop, jointly donated 120 acres to
Green County in exchange for Monroe's designation as the county seat. Eventually, the settlement of New Mexico was absorbed by a growing
Monroe.
A second wave of migrants began to move into Green County in the 1840s, transforming Monroe from two skeletal townsites
into a vigorous village. Monroe grew at a retail trade center during the middle 1800s. Most of the new economic activity in the village
was keyed to area farming, primarily as a place for trading crops and supplies. Early manufacturing ventures were also spurred by
farming. Mills, foundries, lumber and hardware concerns, and wagon builders were kept busy by farm customers. The first brewery in
Monroe was founded in 1843 on the site of present-day Minhas plant. This has been an important local industry ever since.
