Montevideo is one of the Creator’s prairie places, flat and open and stretching as far as the eye can see. The newcomer’s eye sees mostly miles of fields, green with corn and beans in the summer, white with dunes of windswept snow in the winter. With patience, one begins to see the beauty in the slight undulations of the land, the changing wildflowers, the drama of the extremes in weather, and the beautiful river valley in which Montevideo sits. The first settlers would have found parts of life to be easy; the soil is fertile, the rivers bring life as they ebb and flow with water, and wild game is abundant. But the isolation here, the long distances between towns and the extremes of weather, would have required people to learn quickly to rely on each other for the necessities of life, as well as for companionship and entertainment. Patience, persistence and a deep commitment to building community would have been necessary to survive.
Native Americans and fur traders shared this prairie place through the first half of the 19th Century. After the Dakota Conflict in 1862, the government opened the area to homesteaders. Railroads were built; settlers followed: first, Civil War veterans, cashing in their land scrip, then Norwegians, Germans, Swedes, Dutch, Irish. Montevideo was incorporated in 1879.
Montevideo has been shaped and defined by its rural character. Originally, the city’s economy depended almost entirely on agriculture and related industries. However, with the shrinking number of family farms and changes in the way farming is done, the city now can rely on agriculture for only a small portion of its economy. At its peak in 1940, the population of Chippewa County (of which Montevideo is the county seat) was 16,927. Today, Chippewa County’s population has shrunk 20%; however, the population of Montevideo has grown slightly, to 5,600 and is expected to grow comfortably over the next decade.
Today, Montevideo remains a wonderful, comfortable place to live. The city is green and beautiful, with rivers, parks and bike trails winding through. Our citizens profess a remarkable variety of opinions, while sharing values about courtesy and hospitality and the importance of family, faith and community. We have a school system to envy, with a graduation rate of 97%. Our medical campus includes a new $40 million dollar hospital and clinic, a nursing home, assisted living facility and one of the best small V.A. Clinics in the nation. Our economy has diversified to include growing retail trade areas, service and light manufacturing industries, including food processing, a modular home builder, and a niche of firms building high tech parts for medical, commercial and military uses. A recent study found that Montevideo had the largest job growth in the southwest region of Minnesota (650 new jobs added from 2001 to 2004). Beginning in the late 1990’s, we have added hundreds of new affordable residences, and we continue to look for ways to make our community affordable for all, including the construction of home under the Habitat for Humanity program. We consider ourselves a progressive, cosmopolitan community, with a diversity of thoughts and ideas. In 2004, we were named an All America City by the National Civic League.
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