In 1891, homesteaders in Hanover realized their dream of officially incorporating their farming community. It had been thirty-six years since Jacob Vollbrecht, a German immigrant, first arrived by canoe from St. Anthony Falls (later Minneapolis) after coming to the area from New Orleans. Jacob staked his land claim in Minnesota Territory and made the area his home. He and his brother William, who followed in the next year, are credited with founding the village of Vollbrecht Mills, later renamed Hanover.
Two resources lured Vollbrecht to Minnesota Territory: fertile farmland lying close to bodies of water and the Big Woods. Woodlands supplied cheap fuel, firewood for warmth, building materials for homes and barns, fencing for livestock, an abundance of nuts and berries, tree sap for making maple sugar and syrup, and plenty of wild game.
In 1856, when Vollbrecht first stepped ashore at the future site of Hanover, Minnesota was not yet a state; Wright County had only been officially established the year before. In 1862, the U.S. government’s Homestead Act granted acreage to anyone over the age of twenty-one who promised to build a house and live on the land for at least five years. This policy, in part, enticed Germans, many of whom were farmers, to emigrate to America and Minnesota Territory.
As more German families arrived in the 1870s, the town prospered. Its citizens began to seriously consider incorporating the village. The General Village Act of 1883 created a multi-step process. First, residents submitted a petition for incorporation to their district court. A judge then issued the order of incorporation, which was followed by a special election to confirm that the townsite wished to incorporate. In 1885, a change in the law transferred the responsibility of hearing and ruling on the incorporation petitions from the district court to the board of county commissioners.
Certain criteria were required for incorporation, including a town census of at least 200 and land deeded by the owners to the townsite. On August 29, 1891, following the completion of the Wright County surveyors’ plat, town homeowners signed their names in joint agreement to confer their individual plats to form the “townsite of Hanover”.
Documentation of the Plat of Hanover townsite indicates that those individuals who signed their names jointly agreed to grant public use of the town’s streets and alleys. They also agreed that Bridge Street would extend from the bridge over the Crow River to a point in the center of Main Street, where an iron monument would be erected at ground level. A deed laying out the new town’s boundaries was signed by its “owners and proprietors”: Herman Vollbrecht and his wife, Johanna; Henry Vollbrecht and his wife, also named Johanna; Johanna Vollbrecht, William Vollbrecht’s widow; George and Barbara Strunk; Edward and Augusta Strunk; William H. and Amelia Vollbrecht; and Max and Eliza Saenger.
According to the May 16, 1891 Minnesota census, the rural community recorded 206 residents in that year, thus satisfying the final incorporation requirement.
Following enumeration and the subsequent incorporation election in September 1891, Hanover’s officials presented a petition signed by thirty-four residents to county commissioners asking that the village be incorporated. The Wright County commissioners approved the election results on October 9, 1891, and Hanover, Minnesota was officially recognized. Jacob’s brother William was not alive to witness the event; he had died in 1889 at the age of seventy-three.
In October 2016, the city of Hanover commemorated its 125th anniversary.