Mitchell is a local urban district and population centre located in the

Rural Municipality of Hanover The Rural Municipality of Hanover is a rural municipality (RM) in southeastern Manitoba, Canada, located southeast of Winnipeg in Division No. 2. It is Manitoba's most populous rural municipality and fourth-most populous municipality overall ...

Manitoba Manitoba is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population ...

, Canada. It is located three kilometers west of

Steinbach, Manitoba Steinbach () is the List of cities in Manitoba, third-largest city in the province of Manitoba, Canada, and with a population of 17,806, the largest community in the Eastman Region, Manitoba, Eastman region. The city, located about southeast of ...

along Provincial Highway 52. The community has a population of 3,136 as of 2021, making Mitchell the 19th largest population centre in Manitoba.

History

The area that is now known as Mitchell were originally lands of the nomadic

Ojibway The Ojibwe (; Ojibwe writing systems#Ojibwe syllabics, syll.: ᐅᒋᐺ; plural: ''Ojibweg'' ᐅᒋᐺᒃ) are an Anishinaabe people whose homeland (''Ojibwewaki'' ᐅᒋᐺᐘᑭ) covers much of the Great Lakes region and the Great Plains, n ...

-speaking Anishinabe people. On 3 August 1871 the Anishinabe people signed Treaty 1 and moved onto reserves such as the Brokenhead Indian Reserve and Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation Reserve. The area was then settled by

Russian Mennonite The Russian Mennonites ( it. "Russia Mennonites", i.e., Mennonites of or from the Russian Empire are a group of Mennonites who are the descendants of Dutch and North German Anabaptists who settled in the Vistula delta in West Prussia for about ...

settlers in the 1874. At that time there were dozens of villages in the

East Reserve The East Reserve was a block settlement in Eastman Region, Eastern Manitoba initially set aside by the Government of Canada exclusively for settlement by Russian Mennonite settlers in 1873 (although settlement did not occur until 1874). Most of ...

. Three of them, Vollwerk, Ebenfeld, and Reichenbach, were eventually absorbed into the new community of Mitchell, which was renamed after the surrounding school district established in 1919. The Canadian government deliberately chose English names for the school districts, such as Mitchell,

Bothwell Bothwell () is a Protected area, conservation village in the South Lanarkshire council area of Scotland and part of the Greater Glasgow area. It lies on the north bank of the River Clyde, adjacent to Uddingston and Hamilton, Scotland, Hamilton, ...

, Randolph and others in an attempt to assimilate the Mennonites into Canadian culture and eventually some of these communities, such as Mitchell, abandoned the original German names and adopted the new English names as their community names. Vollwerk (which later became Mitchell) was the home of obserschulz ( reeve) Jacob Peters, who led the Mennonite delegation to Canada and was a signatory of the Privilegium. A cairn and gravestone honouring him can be found at the historic Vollwerk Cemetery on Reichenbach Road in Mitchell. The Stahn family, who sold much of the land that would eventually become the modern day community of Mitchell, are also honoured at the Vollwerk Cemetery.

Education

The Mitchell School District was established in 1919. A one-room schoolhouse served the community until the 1950s, when another room has added to handle increasing student enrollment. In 1968, the school district was dissolved and became part of the newly formed Hanover School Division, after which students from Mitchell were required to attend school in Steinbach. The school division has since constructed new elementary and middle schools in Mitchell and only high school students from the Mitchell area are presently required to attend school in Steinbach.

Recreation

Mitchell has a full range of community-run recreational facilities, including an indoor arena, baseball fields, soccer pitches, and tennis courts. The Mitchell Arena was built in 1979 and is home to community's ice hockey teams, nicknamed the Mitchell Mustangs, which play in various Eastman Minor Hockey leagues. The Mitchell Mustangs have been members of the Hanover Tache Junior Hockey League since 1987 and previously played in the Manitoba Junior 'B' Hockey League. The Mustangs has also fielded senior teams in the past that played in the Hanover-Tache and Carillon Senior Hockey Leagues.

Businesses and services

Mitchell's close proximity to the city of Steinbach means residents mostly shop and conduct business at the latter. However, Mitchell does have several of its own businesses and services, such as a

Co-op A cooperative (also known as co-operative, coöperative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democr ...

gas bar and convenience store, a second convenience store, a number of churches, an auto repair business, and an assortment of home-based business.

Government

Mitchell is designated as a local urban district (LUD) within the Rural Municipality of Hanover whose administrative offices are located 1.5 kilometers east of the community. An elected LUD committee, consisting of three members plus the Ward 2 Councillor for Hanover, reports to the municipal council. The community and surrounding area is part of the Steinbach (provincial) and Provencher (federal) electoral districts.

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; ), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture. It is headquartered in ...

, Mitchell had a population of 2,828 living in 858 of its 883 total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of 2,279. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

References

{{MBDivision2 Designated places in Manitoba Local urban districts in Manitoba Unincorporated communities in Eastman Region, Manitoba Russian Mennonite diaspora in Manitoba