The Langenburg district was surveyed by the federal government in 1880. British settlers were already established to the northeast, in the Wolverine district near present-day Marchwell, early in the decade. In the mid-1880s settlers of mainly German origin began arriving, drawn by free homesteads from the federal government and the promise of freedom and prosperity.
The first community was called Colony Hohenlohe, after Prince Hohenlohe von Langenburg, a German nobleman who visited western Canada in 1883 and then recommended it to German emigrants as a better destination than the United States. In the winter of 1886-87 the Manitoba & North-Western Railway reached the area, and a station named Langenburg was established. By 1888 there was a store with a post office. Langenburg School District No. 105 was set up in September 1887, and the schoolhouse opened in May 1890 with nine students on the rolls, soon rising to 13.
Growth was slow for the next decade. A 1899 bid to become a village failed because the community had only five permanent dwellings and needed 15. Then in 1902 a new wave of immigration began, with Scandinavian settlers arriving from the United States, and by April 1903 Langenburg was a village.
Today Langenburg is a town on the Yellowhead Highway, with agriculture and resource industries, including the potash mines near Esterhazy, providing work. Hockey player Kelly Buchberger and country singer Jess Moskaluke are among its notable people.
Written from Wikipedia’s article “Langenburg, Saskatchewan” (CC BY-SA 4.0), and shared under the same licence.