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 US, the Monroe/Green County area is famous for its many delicious varities 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 fist 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 Joseph Huber plant. This has been an important local industry ever since.

A cholera epidemic swept through the village in 1848, but even a disaster of this magnitude failed to seriously affect the economic growth of Monroe. The 1850s saw the establishment of Monroe's first bank, a flour mill, a sawmill, the first newspaper, the organization of the public school system, and a fire department. In 1858, Monroe was incorporated as a village. Immigrants continued to arrive in the village from the eastern United States, Ireland, England, Scotland, Norway, Germany, and Switzerland. Monroe became heavily Swiss by the late 1860s, with arrivals from both the New Glarus area and Europe. The dairying knowledge of the Swiss was to become crucial in an important agricultural shift which occurred in Green County in the middle to late 1800s.

Early farmers in Green County had raised wheat almost exclusively. By the 1870s, a serious wheat oversupply had developed due to marketing problems, low demand in the post-war years, and the opening of better wheat growing lands to the west. Compounding the problem was a cinch bug infestation and the depletion of the soil by farmers who did not practice crop rotation. Fortunately, the Swiss settlers of Green County had imported the knowledge of dairying and cheesemaking. Some specialized cheesemakers had been operating in the county since the 1850s, however, a burgeoning market fpr semi-hard cheeses such as Swiss began to develop in the late 1800s. Although there were many ups and downs in dairying and cheesemaking during this period, by 1900 Monroe was truly the "Swiss Cheese Capitol of the United States."

As the cheese industry prospered, so did the City of Monroe. Originally serving as the major service center for the county, Monroe soon added several warehousing facilities and became the focus of wholesale and retail cheese sales. As the change in economics took place, it induced alterations in the operation and appearance of Monroe. Shops that previously had carried general merchandise now became more specialized, and the appearance of photographers, booksellers, and jewelers testified to both growing diversity and increasing prosperity.

Monroe's earliest manufacturing had consisted of a small brewery and planing mill, both in the south part of the commercial district. But with the growth of capital, made possible by the alliance between the early merchants and the Swiss dairymen, larger manufacturing concerns were established. Manufacturing in the southern part of the commecial district became so extensive that it paid the Illinois Central Railroad to build a spur line up to the brewery buildings.

Finally, the economic success generated by commerce in the city naturally encouraged service industries and social centers to become established. Hotels had already dotted the district, due to the presence of the county courthouse. Many of these were quite elaborate structures and a few still remain standing.

Today much of the city's economy is based on companies that make and distribute cheese, but other activities have been developed as well. Monroe is the seat of Green County government, as well as an important industrial, retail, service, and medical center for a large portion of southwestern Wisconsin and northwestern Illinois.