Built in the summer and fall of 1919 on what became County Hwy. GG about five miles northeast of Iola, the Helvetia Town Hall was inaugurated on April 6, 1920, with the first annual meeting and spring election held there, and it served the township until 1994, with one of its last official functions being the fall election on November 2, 1993. A new town hall on Hwy. GG about two miles east of the vacated property was inaugurated with a town hall meeting on April 4, 1994. The old structure was acquired by the Iola Historical Society in early 1995, became an active HIS property after a special “Lamplight Meeting” at 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 30, 1996, and was moved to its current location on June 20, 2002. The Township of Helvetia had been established on April 2, 1861, from the original towns of Iola and Union, and originally included the area that later became the Town of Wyoming. For its first 23 years, annual meetings were generally held in the homes of town board members, then beginning in 1884 at the Twin Grove School and for the next 15 years at various township schools, and from May 7, 1900, at the Blake Brook School for the following 20 years. At the annual meeting of April 1, 1919, Carl Krause was chosen to chair a building committee to erect the town hall next door to the school. The building served not only for town meetings and elections but also for card parties, dances, birthday, wedding, shower and anniversary parties, and free shows. The township’s name came from Swiss immigrant pioneers who settled the area in the 1850s, with Helvetia being the Germanic name for Switzerland, whose formal name, the Helvetische Republik, had been established in 1798, and the name Helvetia had become a familiar identity for mid-19th century immigrants, appearing on Switzerland’s coins in 1850.