Editing Hector, Minnesota (section)

==History==
Hector was founded in 1878 when the Hastings and Dakota Railway Company constructed the railroad on the north side of the original town site. The ten-block town site survey was completed on September 14, 1878, on land owned by the Hastings and Dakota.<ref name="City of Hector Minnesota"/>

The village was named after the township of Hector, which had been organized in June 1874. It was originally named Milford, but the name was changed when it was learned there was already another Milford in Minnesota. There was heated debate between those who favored the name Plainfield (after the stage stop and post office) and those who favored the name Hector, a township in New York on the east shore of [[Seneca Lake (New York)|Seneca Lake]] where many of the early settlers came from. [[Hector, New York]], was named after the bravest of the ancient Trojan warriors whose story is told in Homer's "[[Iliad]]".<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=21113|title= Profile for Hector, Minnesota, MN|publisher= ePodunk|accessdate= October 8, 2012|archive-date= February 4, 2013|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130204023859/http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=21113|url-status= dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=835|title= Profile for Hector, New York, NY|publisher= ePodunk |accessdate= October 8, 2012}}</ref> (Later research showed the other Milford was actually in South Dakota, so the town could have been named Milford after all.)