With its high-altitude meadows and snow-capped peaks, Star Valley Wyoming has long been known as the “Little Switzerland of America”. Set thirty miles south of Jackson Hole and surrounded by three national forests, the area was first settled by a hardy group of Mormon families in the 1880s.
As in Switzerland, Star Valley’s verdant grasses made good grazing for dairy cows. Early dairymen made butter, which was hauled out of the valley by wagon teams. The settlers soon turned their attentions to making cheese. Eventually Kraft opened an American cheese manufacturing plant in the area.
The farmers of the region, interested in having more control over their business, created a cheese making cooperative. They enlisted the help of a Swiss emigrant, Ernest Brog, to advise them. Brog suggested they make full cream Swiss cheese and stayed on to help set up the processes needed for expert cheesemaking. By 1945 Star Valley was producing two and a half million pounds of Swiss cheese annually.
See the Benjamin F. Davis papers at UW’s American Heritage Center to learn more.
For more information, visit the American Heritage Center site.