THERESA, Wis. – The Wisconsin Historical Society announces the listing of the Widmer’s Cheese Cellars in the National Register of Historic Places on August 11, 2025. The property has been in operation by the Widmer family for over 100 years in Village of Theresa, Dodge County.
Widmer’s Cheese Cellars is a small, family-owned cheese factory that has been in continuous operation by four generations of Widmer family cheesemakers since 1922. In the late nineteenth century, cheese making developed across the state into an important industry, with Dodge County as the leading producer of Brick Cheese, where it originated. John O. Widmer learned to make Brick Cheese while apprenticing with a local cheese maker. In 1922, he opened a cheese factory with Aged Brick Cheese as the flagship cheese in downtown Theresa, the commercial center for the surrounding agricultural area. As John taught family members traditional natural cheese making and time-honored recipes, the industry evolved over time to accommodate new regulations, technology and methods of transportation. These changes included larger production spaces, tanks for the increased milk production through mechanical milking machines, improved transportation methods by truck instead of horses, refrigerated holding tanks for raw milk, stainless steel to replace wood implements, and addition of mechanical refrigeration required for natural cellars.
Widmer’s Cheese Cellars is one of the last operating examples of a small, family-owned cheese factory in Dodge County that made significant contributions to the cheese industry, including the production of Brick Cheese, in Dodge County and Wisconsin.
Additional information for the Widmer’s Cheese Cellars is available at: https://wisconsinhistory.org/Records/NationalRegister/NR2833
To learn more about the State and National Register programs in Wisconsin, visit: https://wisconsinhistory.org/hp/register/
About the Wisconsin Historical Society
The Wisconsin Historical Society, founded in 1846, ranks as one of the largest, most active and most diversified state historical societies in the nation. As both a state agency and a private membership organization, its mission is to help people connect to the past by collecting, preserving and sharing stories. The Wisconsin Historical Society serves millions of people every year through a wide range of sites, programs and services. For more information, visit wisconsinhistory.org.