Greenleafton is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in York Township, Fillmore County,

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

, United States. The community is located southwest of Preston, at the junction of Fillmore County Roads 9 and 20. County Road 14 is also nearby. Greenleafton is located in the northeast corner of York Township. Nearby places include Cherry Grove, Preston, Spring Valley, and

Harmony In music, harmony is the concept of combining different sounds in order to create new, distinct musical ideas. Theories of harmony seek to describe or explain the effects created by distinct pitches or tones coinciding with one another; harm ...

. Greenleafton is located 11 miles southwest of Preston, and 16 miles southeast of Spring Valley. Greenleafton is 13 miles west-northwest of Harmony. Canfield Creek flows through the area. Greenleafton is located within ZIP code 55965 based in Preston. A post office previously operated in the community from 1874 to 1905.

Geography

The area features a

Karst topography Karst () is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone and Dolomite (rock), dolomite. It is characterized by features like poljes above and drainage systems with sinkholes and caves underground. Ther ...

. Nearby Forestville Mystery Cave State Park features the state's longest publicly accessible

cave Caves or caverns are natural voids under the Earth's Planetary surface, surface. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. Exogene caves are smaller openings that extend a relatively short distance undergrou ...

system. Caves even closer to the town have been discovered and are opening up for

exploration Exploration is the process of exploring, an activity which has some Expectation (epistemic), expectation of Discovery (observation), discovery. Organised exploration is largely a human activity, but exploratory activity is common to most organis ...

History

Greenleafton was first settled by

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

immigrants, including Arend Jan Nagel, who moved westward from Alto, Wisconsin, seeking inexpensive land. Like him, many of the first settlers had originally come from the

Achterhoek The Achterhoek (; ) is a cultural region and COROP area in the Eastern Netherlands. Its name (meaning "rear-corner") is geographically appropriate because the area lies in the easternmost part of the province of Gelderland and therefore in the e ...

in the eastern

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

and from neighboring areas in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. These settlers established the Greenleafton Reformed Church in 1867.

Norwegians Norwegians () are an ethnic group and nation native to Norway, where they form the vast majority of the population. They share a common culture and speak the Norwegian language. Norwegians are descended from the Norsemen, Norse of the Early ...

and other groups also settled the area. The name ''Greenleafton'' is in honor of Mary Greenleaf, a benefactor of the former

Dutch Reformed Church The Dutch Reformed Church (, , abbreviated NHK ) was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the traditional denomination of the Dutch royal famil ...

, now the

Reformed Church in America The Reformed Church in America (RCA) is a mainline Reformed Protestant denomination in Canada and the United States. It has about 82,865 members. From its beginning in 1628 until 1819, it was the North American branch of the Dutch Reformed ...

, established there.

References

* Rand McNally Road Atlas – 2007 edition – Minnesota entry * Official State of Minnesota Highway Map – 2011/2012 edition

External links

Greenleafton Reformed Church
{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Minnesota Unincorporated communities in Fillmore County, Minnesota