Weird Laws in Wisconsin: Strange Statutes in America's Dairyland

It started with a 1859-era adultery statute, the kind of law that makes you blink twice and then immediately wonder who still gets hauled into court over it. In Wisconsin, adultery is a Class I felony, and the statute does not care if the person involved is married or just dating someone who is.

Then the dairy part of Dairyland kicks in, because even cheese has to pass legal vibes. Premium Grade AA cheddar must taste “highly pleasing,” while Grade B only needs to be “fairly pleasing,” and nobody can point to a clean definition of either phrase. Throw in public buildings that cannot charge you to use the toilet, and a separate rule that blocks the Department of Health Services from banning manual urinal flushing devices, and suddenly the state’s logic feels like a maze built out of loopholes.

And if you thought that was weird enough, the road rules get stranger too, because drivers must yield right of way to livestock, like the state expects farm animals to show up unannounced.

Wisconsin Laws With Actual Statute Numbers

Adultery is a felony. Wisconsin Statutes §944.16 classifies adultery as a Class I felony, punishable by up to 3 years and 6 months in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. This applies to married individuals who are intimate with anyone other than their spouse. A single person who is intimate with a married person can be charged under the same statute. The law dates to 1859.

The state's premium cheddar must be "highly pleasing." Wisconsin's Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection rules govern cheese quality with formal legal language. ATCP Rule 81.40(1) states that Wisconsin certified Premium Grade AA cheddar must have a flavor that is "highly pleasing." Grade B cheddar need only be "fairly pleasing" under ATCP Rule 81.42(1). The rules provide no definitions for either phrase. The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture certifies graders who must interpret these standards through training and experience.

Public buildings cannot charge admission to use the toilet. Wisconsin Statutes §146.085 prohibits the owner or manager of any public building from charging an admission fee for the use of any toilet compartment. This applies to all public buildings statewide.

The state cannot ban manual urinal flushing devices. Wisconsin Statutes §146.22, a few sections after the toilet fee prohibition, expressly forbids the Department of Health Services from creating any rule, directly or indirectly, that would prohibit the use of manual flushing devices for urinals. The department is also instructed to encourage the use of manual flushing devices. Why this protection exists is unclear from the statutory text.

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That adultery law, with its “married person” and “single person” coverage, is where the seriousness starts, and it does not let up.

While you’re still processing that, Wisconsin also tells certified cheese graders they have to decide what “highly pleasing” even means for Premium Grade AA cheddar.

Motor vehicle operators must yield right of way to livestock. Wisconsin Statute §346.21 requires drivers to yield right of way to livestock on public roads. This is not primarily a quirky law. It is an active provision reflecting Wisconsin's agricultural landscape, where animals crossing roads near farms remain a real and recurring situation.

Until recently, Wausau's anti-projectile ordinance listed snowballs alongside arrows. Wausau Municipal Code §9.08.020, enacted in 1962, prohibited throwing "any object, arrow, stone, snowball or other missile or projectile" at any person or in any public place within the city. Snowballs sat in the same sentence as arrows and stones for nearly 60 years.

After the ordinance went viral nationally in December 2019 and a Barstool Sports article called Wausau "the worst town in America," the city council voted to strike the word "snowball" from the list in early 2020. The projectile ordinance itself still stands. Snowballs just no longer get a named credit in it.

Adultery aside, margarine also has a long legal history here. Wisconsin Statute §98.17, on the books since 1895, governs margarine labeling and sale restrictions that survived into the modern code. Wisconsin completely banned margarine from 1925 to 1967 in a dispute between the dairy industry and butter substitute manufacturers known as the Oleo Wars.

Some restrictions on margarine in public institutions, such as schools and hospitals, remain in effect. The serving of yellow-colored margarine as a substitute for butter in a restaurant without the customer's explicit request is still prohibited under Wisconsin Statute §97.18(4).

This list is the opposite of the usual myths, like the “weird laws” claims that online posts get wrong.

The Myth Wisconsin Can't Shake

Apple pie must be served with cheese in Wisconsin. This is one of the most repeated food laws in the country, and it is false. The Wisconsin State Journal asked the University of Wisconsin Law Library to research the claim in 2009.

The answer: no current law requires it. A statute in effect from 1935 to 1937 required restaurants to serve a small amount of cheese and butter with meals. That law never required cheese on apple pie specifically, and it expired nearly 90 years ago. No such requirement exists today.

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Right after the cheddar standard, the toilet rules get their turn, since public buildings cannot charge admission just to use the bathroom.

And then the urinal twist lands, because the state explicitly blocks any rule that would stop manual flushing devices, even if the Department of Health Services wanted to.</p>

Why Wisconsin's Laws Are Like This

Wisconsin's dairy industry shaped its legal code the way few industries shape the laws of any state. The margarine wars, the cheese grading system, the butter labeling rules, these all came from a state where dairy represented an enormous share of economic output and where producers had the political influence to write their priorities into law. Many of those provisions outlasted the conditions that created them.

For laws shaped by different industries and different historical pressures, weird laws in Arkansas include a 19th-century ordinance about state name pronunciation. Weird laws in California include a provision explicitly permitting licensed beer manufacturers to sell from wagons.

Wisconsin's cheese obsession doesn't stop at the legal code. When Elon Musk visited Wisconsin ahead of a court race, he wore a cheese hat - a gesture that only lands because the dairy identity is so deeply embedded in how the state presents itself.

That same identity is what shaped the margarine wars, the ATCP cheese grading rules, and the Oleo Wars of the mid-20th century. For the wider American context, 31 maps showing unexpected facts about everyday America places Wisconsin's dairy dominance in regional perspective, and the country's collection of weird roadside attractions includes some of Wisconsin's more expressive dairy tributes.

The full picture of how these laws accumulate is covered in weird laws in the United States. Wisconsin's complete statutory code is available at docs.legis.wisconsin.gov, where every statute cited here can be read in full.

By the time you’re yielding to livestock on the road, you’ll start to wonder if Wisconsin laws are written by a very specific kind of chaos.

For more real court-room weirdness, check out Ohio’s bread-size rules and the fish sobriety law.