Randolph, originally known as Chortitz, is a small community 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. The community has an estimated population of 70 and is located 1.6 kilometres north of Highway 52 on Provincial Road 206 about 11 kilometres west of Steinbach. Randolph is located within a half kilometre of the longitudinal centre of Canada.

History

The area that is now known as Randolph 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 community of Chortitz was founded in the 1874 by

Mennonite Mennonites are a group of Anabaptism, Anabaptist Christianity, Christian communities tracing their roots to the epoch of the Radical Reformation. The name ''Mennonites'' is derived from the cleric Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland, part of ...

immigrants who came from

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

to settle the lands known as 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 ...

, now largely the

. The village agreement was signed in 1877 by fifteen Mennonite families; eight Bergthaler and seven Chortitzer. As home of the Bergthaler Bishop Gerhard Wiebe, the village quickly became the centre for trade and local government and an unofficial "capital" of the East Reserve, though over time the Kleine Gemeinde village of Steinbach overtook Chortitz in prominence. East Reserve Bergthalers adopted the named Chortitzer Mennonite Conference in 1878. By 1883, only six of the original families remained while new residents moved in. All the houses and residential yards were on the north side of the original street, which ran differently from the present Randolph Road, due to a resurvey when the municipality established the road. The community received the name Randolph when the Manitoba government established a local school district in the early 1900s. The Canadian government deliberately chose English names, such as Randolph, Mitchell, New Bothwell, and others in an attempt to assimilate the Mennonites into Canadian culture.

Canada Post Canada Post Corporation (, trading as Canada Post (), is a Canadian Crown corporation that functions as the primary postal operator in Canada. Originally known as Royal Mail Canada (the operating name of the Post Office Department of the Can ...

later established the postal district of Randolph. The local post office operated out of a local business until 2008. Neufeldgarage

The most noteworthy structure at Randolph is the Chortitz Heritage Church, which was established as a congregation in 1876, with the current building dating to 1897. It was likely the first Mennonite church in western Canada and granted heritage status by the municipality in 2014. The Randolph Heritage Cemetery is located across the road from the church. The Randolph Rink, located south of the community, was a popular outdoor hockey rink built in the 1960s. The rink was featured on the

CBC Television CBC Television (also known as CBC TV, or simply CBC) is a Television in Canada, Canadian English-language terrestrial television, broadcast television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcasting, p ...

series '' On the Road Again''. It was used until 2006 and demolished in 2009. A group of local residents later transformed the community's historic 1948 auto repair shop Neufeld Garage into the Randolph Community Centre, which has also been used as a filming location for film and television, due to its authentic mid-century decor. The non-profit Randolph Sports Club opened in 2015.

References

External links

RM of Hanover Official Website
{{MBDivision2 Unincorporated communities in Eastman Region, Manitoba Russian Mennonite diaspora in Manitoba

History

See also

References

External links