New England was founded in 1887, predating all other settlements in Hettinger County by many years. The name recognizes that many early settlers were from the New England states of Vermont and Massachusetts. Until the tracks were abandoned in 1983, the city was located at the terminus of a Milwaukee Road branch line that split from the railroad's Pacific Extension in McLaughlin, South Dakota. New England was incorporated as a village on June 15, 1921 and as a city on July 1, 1967.
The silhouette of the two Rainy Buttes near New England is a distinguishing symbol of the town.
Passages that mention New England, cut from the printed page as they were published.
Life of Thomas Hawley Canfield [microform]1889 · page 21Read the page →
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give it a more national character than it seemed to have had before, in consequence of most of those identitied with it being from New England, Mr. Canfield conceived the idea of a syndicate of gentlemen, to be made up from those occupying prominent positions in the leading railroads of the country.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
give it a more national character than it seemed to have had before, in consequence of most of those identified with it being from New England, Mr. Canfield conceived the idea of a syndicate of gentlemen, to be made up from those occupying prominent positions in the leading railroads of the country.
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
New England, 1786 to 1973
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.
In 1887, according to Wikidata and Wikipedia’s history of the town. New England’s post office opened in 1887, and the census of 1920 counted 613 people 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 the Library of Congress (3), Wikidata (1), the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, 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.
1942
1942
