Editing Hermantown, Minnesota (section)

==History==
[[File:Pat_Acker,_Emelie_Wilke.jpg|left|thumb|Lambert "Pat" Acker and his wife, Emelie Louisa Wilke]]

The first inhabitants of the area were Native Americans. They lived in the area often called in early Duluth references "the land up over the hill."

In 1867, August Kohlts and his friend Lambert "Pat" Acker filed for homesteads in Section 18, Township 50 North, Range 15 West. Both families had emigrated from Prussia. Acker arrived at about age five with his parents and siblings around 1835 and settled in Erie County, New York. He married Emelie Louisa Wilke on January 12, 1850. Kohlts and his wife, Emilie, immigrated in the spring of 1860. The Kohltses and Ackers resided in the town of Tonawanda on the Niagara River for some years with many other German settlers in the area. Citizenship was granted to Kohlts on March 20, 1868. Soon afterward, the Kohlts and Acker families set out from Buffalo, New York, heading west via the Great Lakes for the Hancock, Michigan, area of the [[Keweenaw Peninsula]] and its copper mines.

Perhaps lured by the availability of free land under the Homestead Act, the Kohlts family left for Minnesota. The federal census of June 1, 1870, records their presence in the Second Ward of the newly formed city of Duluth, while the Ackers arrived in Duluth in 1871. By January 1872, August Kohlts had established an 82-acre site in the wilderness outside Duluth. He and Acker were the first settlers in the area now known as Hermantown. The area was named for the Germanic chieftain known as [[Arminius]] or Herman.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Upham |first=Warren |url=https://archive.org/details/minnesotageogra00uphagoog |title=Minnesota geographic names; their origin and historic significance |date=1920 |publisher=[[Minnesota Historical Society]] |pages=484 |via=[[Archive.org]]}}</ref>

In the years that followed, Kohlts and Acker alternated between working in Duluth and clearing land at their rural homesteads on what is now Five Corners Road in Hermantown. They traveled between Duluth and their homesteads on a Native American trail that later became Piedmont Avenue and the Hermantown Road.

Hermantown's population got a boost from a new wave of homesteaders just before World War II. During the Great Depression, the federal government built nearly a hundred "subsistence 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 Hermantown.

The Jackson Project was completed in 1937. It is one of Hermantown's more interesting features, with a proliferation of "Jackson Homes" on certain roadways. These single-family dwellings were built during the Depression as subsistence homesteads. Many retain their original brick appearance, albeit with additions. Each of the 84 homesteads had a brick veneer farmhouse; half also had a garage-barn combination. Each had five or {{convert|10|acre|m2}} 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.

The Jackson Project was one of the later projects built, which was a benefit because the quality of housing improved. Plumbing and electricity were now required in all homes. The homesteaders gave a new profile to what was then Herman Township. Now with 84 homes and families concentrated in one part of the community, the Project marked the start of Hermantown's transition from rural to suburban.

Hermantown was incorporated as a city on December 31, 1975.

The community of Adolph is in Hermantown's southwest corner.