Switzerland and Midwest Connections: Highland - New Switzerland in Illinois
Welcome to the History Blog featuring the connections between Switzerland and the Midwest. I am Joerg Oberschmied, Deputy Consul General in Chicago. My interest in history started at an early age and continues to this day. The views expressed are solely mine and I hope you enjoy these journeys through time.
Highland in southern Illinois is a prosperous community with about ten thousand inhabitants, located thirty miles east of St. Louis, Missouri. Whereas the area was settled as early as 1804, the town is first recorded with the arrival of the Köpfli and Suppiger families from the Canton of Lucerne. Kaspar Köpfli (1774–1854), was a physician who together with his nephew Joseph Suppiger (1804–61), set out from Sursee for St. Louis in 1831. Traveling with them were Köpfli’s wife Elisabeth, his daughter Rosa and his three sons Bernhard, Josef, and Salomon. They purchased land in nearby Illinois and called their settlement ‘Neu Schweizerland’ (New Switzerland).
From ‘Neu Schweizerland’ to ‘Highland’
Kaspar Köpfli described their start in the new world as follows: “First a saw and flour mill, steam driven, was built by Mr. Suppiger; this mill produces the most important building materials. This was followed by a brick-works for which good limestone in quantity can be found in a nearby quarry without charge. Soon a tavern, a school house, and a general store were built”. (1).
In 1836, two strangers visited Köpfli and Suppiger to inquire about buying land. One of them was James Semple, a General during the Black Hawk War. He was later elected to the state legislature and served as attorney general of Illinois. President Van Buren appointed Semple to the post of Minister to Colombia, and the Illinois legislature appointed Semple in subsequent years to the Illinois Supreme Court. With the projected route of a railroad passing through the Swiss settlement, Semple planned to lay out a town here. Surveys had shown that the region had the highest altitude between the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers (at slightly over 500 ft). At Semple’s request, the place was called Highland. When in 1840 word came from Washington that there was already a Highland near Chicago, for a while the post office was called Helvetia. After a few years the Highland near Chicago was changed to Highland Park, and the name Helvetia was changed back to Highland.
Köpfli describes how the town grew: “A smith and several other craftsmen settled eventually; the town has grown so much, that over a hundred families, in as many houses, have found a home and a carefree life. In 1845 there were two school houses attended by sixty to seventy children, two good doctors, three inns, three business places, one justice of the peace (squire), one constable, five smithies, three wagon makers, carpenter, shoemaker, tailor, mason, saddler, plumber, cutler, plasterer, painter, three brick-yards, a dairy, and a distillery. The town is steadily growing and prospering. Life in Highland is very Swiss; almost everyone speaks Swiss” (2). By 1870, Highland had become the largest rural Swiss colony in the United States.
His son Salomon Köpfli (1814–1869) writes to a friend in 1861 how the settlers turned to viniculture. “When we first arrived here in 1831, we brought wine grapes from different parts of Switzerland, France, and Germany. We soon found that European grapes would not do here. In 1843 we started the first Catawba grape in our settlement, and in 1847 we made the first wine from the grapes and found it of excellent quality. After 1847 we planted five acres in grape vines, and with this vineyard we had a good success”. (3)
Highland Today
Prohibition diminished Illinois’ wine production, which only in recent years rebounded again. There are 150 wineries in the state, which in 2022 generated an economic impact of $9 Billion. The town of Highland has been holding on to its Swiss roots to this day, as reflected in its coat of arms, which depicts an American escutcheon over a Swiss shield. Today, Highland is a modern small town with its own water supply, modern broadband facilities, a “state-of-the-art” security center, and its own regional hospital. Since 1987, Highland is twinned with Sursee in the canton of Lucerne, Kaspar Köpfli’s birthplace.
For more information see “New Switzerland in Illinois” 1977, Southern Illinois University Foundation.
(1) Kaspar Köpfli “Spiegel von Amerika» (Lucerne, 1849) — Dr. Kaspar Köpfli returned to Switzerland a decade later for a period of ten years. It was during this stay that he wrote “Spiegel von Amerika”, in which he also gives advice and a clear picture of what an emigrant might expect to find.
(2) Ibid.
(3) The family’s accomplishments in the new land after ten years were described by Salomon Köpfli in his book “Neu Schweizerland in den Jahren 1831 und 1841”; (Lucerne, 1842).
