Before Zermatt became a name on every "must-visit" list, it was an isolated farming village whose residents lived off alpine agriculture and livestock, with no particular interest in climbing the peaks around them. In fact, the valley's 18th-century inhabitants were deeply religious and saw mountaineering as pointless, and some even believed the Matterhorn was cursed, since every previous attempt on its summit had failed.

The real turning point came on July 14, 1865, when a seven-man team led by British climber Edward Whymper reached the 4,478-metre summit of the Matterhorn via the Hörnli ridge, which remains the standard Swiss climbing route to this day. The team also included Lord Francis Douglas, Charles Hudson, Douglas Hadow, guide Michel Croz, and two local Zermatt guides, Peter Taugwalder and his son. But the triumph was short-lived: on the descent, Hadow slipped and fell, pulling three of his companions — Douglas, Hudson and Croz — down with him in a tragic fall that killed all four, while Whymper and the Taugwalders survived. Despite its grim toll, the accident instantly put Zermatt on the world map, and within a few decades the small village transformed into a global capital of mountaineering and alpine tourism.

Today, visitors can touch that history directly in a small cemetery behind the village's main church, where several climbers who died attempting the Matterhorn over the years are buried — a quiet, deeply symbolic corner. The Matterhorn Museum, also known as Zermatlantis, displays a fragment of the very rope that snapped during Whymper's team's 1865 descent, alongside other exhibits documenting the evolution of mountaineering in the region and Zermatt's shift from farming village to global tourist destination.

Architecturally, parts of the old village still stand, most notably the dark wooden houses of the Hinterdorf quarter, raised on round stone pillars specifically designed to keep rats and rodents from reaching the grain and cheese stores above — a traditional building method that spread across the Swiss Alps centuries ago. That contrast between the quiet old village and modern tourist infrastructure captures what makes Zermatt distinctive: a place that has kept its local identity even as it became a global destination visited by millions each year, including a growing number of Gulf and Saudi visitors seeking an authentic mountain experience.