The history of Hermantown is a story of independent people interacting with big government. It started at the very beginning, with pioneers who were granted a piece of the wilderness by Uncle Sam after living on it, working it, improving it. August Kohlts was granted the first homestead in the Town of Herman in 1872, after living on the land for five years. He and a friend hauled supplies to their land west of the Midway Road by hitching two St. Bernard dogs to a homemade wagon and following a crooked trail (now the Hermantown and Five Corners Roads) through the woods.
Much has been said about where the town got its name. Unfortunately, this cannot be proven, but we know from county records that it was referred to as the Town of Herman in 1873 when taxes were received from the town. At this time, there were very few people living in the town. The man who headed the survey crew in the town was named August Herman and that the town derived its name from him.
By the turn of the century, the Town of Herman had a population of 625. There was rail passenger service into Duluth from Adolph, named after Adolph Bjorlin, who had a general store at the corner of Midway and Morris Thomas. Herman had its first land boom, the result of rumors that the government would be building a new seaway connecting Duluth with the East Coast. Herman land sold for $250 an acre in 1897, compared to prices of $12.50 an acre forty years later.
Ten years later, the township had grown by 300 people, built three new two-room schools, and had a town hall in an old one-room school at LaVaque and Hermantown Roads. There were several sawmills, a Herman Ice Company cutting ice from Mogie Lake and selling it for cold storage to nearby dairies, a slaughterhouse at Haines and Hermantown Roads, and carrier mail service in the township.
But the growth of the township was set back by the great forest fire of 1918, which swept through Herman and 36 other townships, including Cloquet and Moose Lake. Hardly a building in town was left standing. Among the few that did survive were the three two-room schools, the church at Maple Grove and Midway, the town hall and the Woodmen Hall, the center of all activity in the township at the time. With help from the Red Cross, the town was quickly rebuilt, but the 1920 population was down to 842.
Herman's population would soon get a boost from a new wave of homesteaders. During the hard times of the Depression, the federal government built nearly a hundred "susbistence homestead" projects designed to move people trapped in poverty in the cities to new homes in rural or suburban locations. One of the two Minnesota projects was assigned to Herman.
The Jackson Project was completed in 1937. Each of the 84 homesteads had a brick veneer farmhouse; half also had a garage/barn combination. Each had five or ten acres of land, and the family also received a pig, a cow, and 35 chickens. The idea was that the family would be able to raise its own food and use the profits from selling any surplus to work off its debt to the government. The units were sold to homesteaders on very liberal terms. The average price for the home and property was $2,687.40 plus interest. Plumbing and electrical wiring were required. The project marked the start of a transition from rural to suburban for the Town of Herman.
Twenty years later, it would be time for a third wave to come to the township. They were the suburbanites of the 1950's, who came from Duluth to the rural township with its low taxes, country living space, and good school district.
The Air Force became a factor beginning in 1953. In 1957, the construction of a 105 family housing unit on base brought 120 new students to the school district. By 1959, the original brick schoolhouse had been added to five times, and a brand new elementary school was built that year.
The Town of Herman was profoundly influenced by a more local form of government in 1974. A few days after the 4th of July, the neighboring city of Duluth announced its intention to annex two-thirds of the township in order to keep its population over the 100,000 mark and retain first class city status.
Herman, which had already applied to be desginated a city, was outraged. Thousands of citizens turned out for public hearings on the matter. Signs were posted, committees organized, telegrams sent, strategies planned.
The fate of Herman, whether it would be split in two, keep its grass roots democracy township organization, or become a city, was in the hands of the Minnesota Municipal Commission. The town board told the commission that its 7,000 citizens needed more services that it could provide with the limited taxing power of a township. Some of the citizens wanted to remain a township and have a direct vote at annual town meetings. Duluth claimed that Herman was actually an outgrowth of Duluth anyway, and would benefit by becoming part of the larger municipality. As a township, Herman could be annexed at any time by the city of Duluth, whether the township residents agreed or not. As a city, that would not be possible. On February 11, 1975, the Municipal Commission declared that the Town of Herman could become the City of Hermantown on December 31 of that year.
