24/7 Biohazard and Crime Scene Cleanup in Hanover, KS

Hanover is a small city in Washington County in northern Kansas, located about 7.5 miles south of the Nebraska state line.

Hanover is a traditional German community named after Hanover, Germany, the hometown of its founder, Geret Hollenberg.

In 1858 Geret Hollenberg and his wife Sophia Brockmeyer settled their Cottonwood Ranch along the Little Blue River, where it became Hollenberg Station — a stage depot with a grocery, a tavern and nine boarding rooms on the Oregon-California Trail.

Hollenberg Station served as the westernmost Pony Express station in Kansas, and its ranch house is the only Pony Express station building still standing along the roughly 2,000-mile route; it is now a National Historic Landmark one mile northeast of Hanover.

Hanover was laid out in 1869 and incorporated as a city in 1872, growing into an important shipping point at the junction of two railroads.

A school district was organized in the Hanover area in 1868, before the town itself was even platted.

The 2020 census counted 690 people in Hanover, living in 268 households; the town's population peaked at 1,039 back in 1910.

Residents of Hanover and the surrounding area kept speaking German until World War I, and German traditions remain an important part of the town's identity today.

Hanover children attend Hanover Public School (K-12) in the Barnes-Hanover-Linn USD 223 district, while St. John's Catholic School serves grades 1 through 8 — reflecting the town's Lutheran and Catholic roots.

Hanover High School is a tiny Class 1A school whose teams have won many Kansas state championships and whose students compete at the national level in Future Business Leaders of America.