Menno, SD

Menno is a city in southeastern Hutchinson County, South Dakota. The 2020 census counted 614 people, and the town was laid out in 1879. German-Russian settlers began arriving in the region after earlier immigration to the United States in the 1840s, and local delegates selected the Menno area for permanent settlement in 1874. The Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad laid tracks through the area in 1879, giving the new town a way to move livestock and grain to market.

Many early settlers came from the Kassel and Crimea areas around the Black Sea and built sod houses while establishing farms. That heritage is still visible through the Menno Historical Museum and Annex, local churches, businesses, and the city's calendar of social activities. Menno's municipal site describes a community shaped by the railroad, German-Russian ancestry, education, and agriculture rather than by a single industry. The local scoop is a Hutchinson County rail town where the first settlers' language and land story still sit close to the streets laid out beside the tracks.