Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Monroe, WI

Monroe is the county seat of Green County in southwestern Wisconsin and is known nationwide as the "Swiss Cheese Capital of the USA."

The settlement was named for President James Monroe, drew its first settlers around 1835, and was incorporated as a city in 1882.

The US Census Bureau counted 10,661 residents in Monroe at the 2020 census, and the 2010 census recorded 10,827 people living in 4,810 households.

Monroe's Swiss character comes from the immigrants from Canton Glarus, Switzerland, who founded nearby New Glarus in 1845 and turned Green County into dairy and cheesemaking country.

Green County's Swiss roots ran so deep that as late as the 1970 census it was the only county in the United States whose largest foreign-born population was people born in Switzerland.

Monroe is the only place in the United States where Limburger cheese is still produced, made at the Chalet Cheese Co-op, and traditional 180-pound wheels of Emmentaler Swiss are made there as well.

The Green County Cheese Days festival, first held in 1914, now takes place every even-numbered year on the third weekend of September and draws more than 100,000 visitors, with Wisconsin's only parade led by Brown Swiss cows.

Monroe is home to the Minhas Craft Brewery, opened in 1845 as the Monroe Brewery, which is the oldest brewery in the Midwest and the second-oldest brewery in the United States.

Monroe's Turner Hall, established in 1868, is believed to be the only Turner gymnast hall of Swiss origin left in the United States and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The National Historic Cheesemaking Center, housed in a restored railroad depot in Monroe, preserves the county's cheesemaking story along with the relocated Imobersteg farmstead cheese factory.