The Brewster post office opened in 1886, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Hersey (1872), opened inside today’s city and later closed.
First census: 234 in 19002020 census: 506140 years
Founding year: the first Brewster post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
What stands out about Brewster’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Founding of Brewster: The town of Brewster was in established in the spring of 1872, but was known for many years as Hersey. It was the first town established in Nobles County by the St. Paul and Sioux City Railroad, and was named after General Samuel F. Hersey, a lumber baron from Maine, and one of the railroad's directors. The first resident was W. R. Bennett, who came to take charge of the railroad station. T. J. Smith put up the first store which was run by A. J. Timlin for many years. Mr. A. O. Conde established a lumber yard and a grain business, Martin Heiser opened a second store, a hotel was opened by a Mr. Humphrey, and John Iverson established a blacksmith shop. All of this occurred in 1872, the same year that A. J. Timlin became postmaster.
Passages that mention Brewster, cut from the printed page as they were published.
An illustrated history of Nobles County, Minnesota1908 · page 409Read the page →
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Mr. West owns COO acres of well improved land adjoining the village of Brewster on the south, 368 acres in Graham Lakes township and 400 acres in northern Minnesota, and has an elegant home in Brewster. He holds the office of president of the Brewster school board, was mayor of the town in 1905 and recorder in 1903 and 1904.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
An illustrated history of Nobles County, Minnesota1908 · page 522Read the page →
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graded schools and a mechanical school, in which he studied electricity, and learned tlie satin cloth weaver's trade. He came to the United States and to Brewster in t]i(! sjiring of 1900, completing his education by a term in the Brewster school and in tlie liigli school at Heron Lake. He spent the years 1902 and 1903 in Heron Lake, and
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Brewster, 1872 to 1960
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (3), the Library of Congress (5), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
![graded schools and a mechanical school, in which he studied electricity, and learned tlie satin cloth weaver's trade. He came to the United States and to Brewster in t]i(! sjiring of 1900, completing his education by a term in the Brewster school and in tlie liigli school at Heron Lake. He spent th…](https://images.townratings.com/story/8560/bk-cbf057da97c40d1a-l.jpg)
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