Two stories came out of Brodhead this month, and they had nothing to do with each other, except that they did.
In the middle of August, word came back from Madison that a Brodhead cheesemaker had turned in the highest-scoring havarti in the entire 2026 Wisconsin State Fair Dairy Products Contest. Around the same stretch of weeks, with far less fanfare, the trail that runs through the north side of town became the subject of an actual fight over what should be allowed to use it. One story is about a small town making something better than anyone else in the state. The other is about that same town arguing over how quiet it wants to stay. Both are true at once, and if you live here, both are worth understanding, because they point in opposite directions.
The Ribbon
Decatur Dairy sits out on County Highway F, the kind of place where the silos show up before the building does. It has been making cheese since the 1940s, and the family behind it, the Stettlers, are now three generations deep into the trade. Steve Stettler is a four-time graduate of the Wisconsin Master Cheesemaker program and holds certifications in six different cheeses, from brick to specialty Swiss.
This year's state fair contest drew more than 500 entries across over 50 categories, judged in June and posted publicly in mid-August. Decatur Dairy cheesemaker Matt Henze turned in a havarti that scored 99.835, the top mark in that category, and a herb and garlic cheese curd that also topped its class at 99.390. Stettler himself placed in havarti dill, and a team entry credited simply to the Decatur Cheesemakers scored 99.430, placing further down that same havarti list. Four separate entries from one Brodhead address, placing across four different lists, is not a small showing.
None of this is new for the plant. It underwent a $6 million expansion in 2022, adding packaging, curing, and warehouse space so it could keep up with growth, a project built on a milk supply from more than 70 cooperative farms across Green, Rock, and Lafayette counties. The state fair ribbons are the latest proof that the investment worked. If you have grabbed cheese curds from the picnic tables out front on a Saturday, or a grilled cheese sandwich that outperforms the concept of a grilled cheese sandwich, this is the operation behind it, and it just had its best public showing in years.
The Vote
The other Brodhead story runs along the Sugar River State Trail, the 24-mile former rail line that connects New Glarus, Monticello, and Albany to a quiet ending here in town. It crosses 14 trestle bridges, overlaps a stretch of the Ice Age Trail between Monticello and Albany, and meets the Badger State Trail near Monticello. Just north of Brodhead, it passes through a reproduction covered bridge over Norwegian Creek, built in 1984 from wood salvaged out of old barns. That bridge is very likely the reason the city's own Covered Bridge Days festival, held earlier this month, is named what it is. The southern end of the trail sits near Putnam Park, where the state maintains parking and restrooms, and a state trail pass, $5 for the day or $25 for the year, is required for any cyclist 16 or older.
The Brodhead City Council has already voted 4 to 3 to ask the Wisconsin DNR to consider allowing ATVs and UTVs on the trail. A local ATV club made the case that the trail sees little use from cyclists and hikers and isn't well maintained as it is. A group called Friends of the Badger and Sugar River State Trails disagrees, arguing the crushed limestone surface is in genuinely good shape and that motorized traffic would tear it up. Brodhead residents have circulated a petition against the change. The DNR is still accepting public comment on the proposal, and a separate, broader Southwest Savanna regional master plan covering the trail's future is also still in progress.
What The Trail Actually Carries
Here is the part that does not quite add up. The DNR itself estimates more than 70,000 people use the Sugar River State Trail every year. That is not a trail sitting empty. It is one of the more heavily used rail trails in this part of the state, and it happens to be the same corridor that delivers cyclists straight to Decatur Dairy's front door and through the covered bridge that gives the town's own festival its name. The argument for opening it to motorized use rests on the trail being underused and neglected. The usage numbers and the condition reports from the people who ride it regularly say otherwise.
That contradiction matters if you live near the trail or use it yourself, because it means the outcome is not decided by consensus about what the trail actually is. It is being decided by a council vote and a state planning process, working against a backdrop of two very different accounts of the same 24 miles. Anyone who bikes the Brodhead-to-Albany stretch on a Sunday and anyone pushing for ATV access are describing conditions that do not match, and only one of those descriptions can end up shaping policy.
The Calendar Doesn't Wait
Whatever happens with the trail vote, Brodhead's fall calendar is already set, and it tells its own version of the town's split personality. The summer version of Brodhead was casual: food trucks pulling into Putnam Park on Tuesday evenings, a Brodhead Night Out downtown, kids and horses at the Brodhead Open Horse Show and Speed Show. September shifts into something with more production value. The VIBE HIGH Music & Arts Festival takes over Sweet Minihaha Campground from September 11 through 13. Pridefest lands at the same campground on September 26. That same weekend, Brodhead Manor runs both a Saturday daytime tour and a Saturday night investigation, with a full two-night VIP weekend investigation starting the Friday before. October brings Autumn Fest, paired this year with a Día de los Muertos observance downtown.
None of that requires the trail question to be settled first. Brodhead in September is a town running a music festival, a haunted house circuit, and a cheese operation with a state title all at the same time, which is a fuller month than most people give a town this size credit for.
Where That Leaves Anyone Living Here Now
If you're riding the trail this fall, the surface is still crushed limestone and the pass requirement hasn't changed, so bring the $5 or renew the $25 annual pass before you go, and expect the softer, rutted stretches between Brodhead and Albany that regular riders have flagged for a while now. If you're keeping an eye on the ATV question, the DNR is still taking public comment on it, and the broader Southwest Savanna master plan that touches this same trail is also still being written. And if you have not been out to Decatur Dairy since the ribbons came in, the picnic tables are still out front and the curds are the same herb and garlic blend that just outscored every other entry in its class statewide.
Brodhead is not choosing between being a cheese town and being a trail town. It is being both, loudly, in the same August, and the tension between them is worth watching if you plan on sticking around for what comes next.
If you have questions about what's happening in Brodhead's housing market alongside all of this, or you're weighing a move in Southern Wisconsin more broadly, Kimberley Govert-Meris is always glad to talk it through. Let's Connect.
