Biohazard and Pathogen Disinfection in Hanover, MN

Hanover is a city mainly in Wright County, Minnesota, with a small part extending into Hennepin County, and it is nicknamed the 'Little City on the Crow' for the Crow River that flows through it.

Hanover was founded by Jacob Vollbrecht, a German blacksmith and ironworker who first settled the area in 1856 and homesteaded 160 acres on both sides of the Crow River; the settlement was first known as Vollbrecht Mills and its first business was his blacksmith shop.

More German-American settlers followed the Vollbrecht brothers after the Homestead Act of 1862, and the town was laid out in 1877 and named after Hanover, Germany, the founders' homeland.

Hanover was incorporated in 1891, after an incorporation election on October 9 of that year, and its post office has been in operation since 1877.

The Crow River forms the boundary between Wright and Hennepin counties as it runs through Hanover's Downtown River District.

Hanover's 1885 iron truss bridge over the Crow River, built with the Morse Bridge Company, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in December 1979 and now serves as a pedestrian bridge, closed to vehicles since 1973.

In December 1909 the Great Northwest Magazine proclaimed Hanover 'the brightest inland city,' praising its cement sidewalks, electric lights, water power and graded streets.

The 2020 census counted 3,548 people in Hanover in 1,126 households, and more than half of those households — 53.2 percent — had children under 18 living in them, giving the city a median age of just 35.9 years.

Hanover has grown nearly fivefold since 1990, when it had just 783 residents, as the Twin Cities metropolitan area has expanded west into Wright County.