If you go
› What: Swiss Heritage Festival.› When: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. CDT Saturday, July 30.› Where: Stocker-Stampfli Homestead & Farm Museum, Gruetli-Laager, Tenn.› Admission: $5.› Email: info@swisshistoricalsociety.org.› Website: www.swisshistoricalsociety.org.
Directions
From I-24 in Monteagle, take Highway 41 to Highway 56 North. Follow Highway 56 North through Tracy City and Coalmont. Turn right onto Highway 108 East to Gruetli-Laager. Turn left onto 20th Avenue at the old post office (look for a large banner over the highway). At the Swiss Colony Cemetery sign, turn right and travel past the cemetery to the Stoker-Stampfli Homestead & Farm Museum.
Area residents can join with members of the Grundy County Swiss Historical Society to immerse themselves in all things Swiss on Saturday, July 30, when the organization presents its annual Swiss Heritage Festival in Gruetli-Laager, Tenn.
Highlights of the celebration, scheduled from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. CDT, include tours of the historic buildings at the Stocker-Stampfli Homestead & Farm Museum, wine and cheese tastings, hayrides and live music. The grounds include the original cabin, a farmhouse, cheese house, barn and vineyard.
Two bands are scheduled to perform, alternating in 45-minute sets. The Musik Meisters, a polka band from Nashville, will play at 10:15 a.m., noon and 2 p.m. Bazzania Girls Band, based in Sewanee, Tenn., will play at 11:10 a.m., 1 and 3 p.m.
Vendors will provide a variety of foods, including brats, kraut, barbecue, Swiss chocolate, Swiss cheese and local wines.
Historian Clopper Almon is scheduled for a book signing of "The Swiss Colony at Gruelti." Written in the 1930s by Frances Helen Jackson as a thesis for her master's degree, the "Gruetli Book" includes interviews with some of the original colonists and gives an eyewitness account of the state of the colony in the 1930s.
Almon is fluent in German, and event organizers say he has "spent years updating, adding maps and indexing this valuable resource. His work has shed much light on the colonists and especially on the earliest part of their journey to a new land."