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===Mennonite immigration and influence=== The coming of the railroad in 1873 played a big role in the expansion of the village. By the time Mountain Lake was formally incorporated in 1886, it had a population of three hundred people, primarily composed of Mennonites immigrating from southern Russia (present-day Ukraine).<ref name="Brown">{{cite book|last1=Brown|first1=John A.|title=History Of Cottonwood And Watonwan Counties Minnesota Their People, Industries And Institutions|publisher=B.F.Bowen and Company|volume=1 |chapter=Townships of Cottonwood County Minnesota 1916| edition=1916|url=http://genealogytrails.com/minn/cottonwood/history/townships2.htm|access-date=August 17, 2016}}</ref> In 1873, [[Russian Mennonite|Mennonite]] immigrants from [[Ukraine]] (at that time, Ukraine was part of the [[Russian Empire]]) began to arrive in Mountain Lake, having been recruited by William Seeger, a member of the Minnesota State Board of Immigration. Seeger had specifically targeted Mennonites, “because they were believed to be hard workers of good character.”<ref name="MHS">{{cite web|url= http://www.mnopedia.org/group/mennonites-mountain-lake |title=MNopedia "Mennonites of Mountain Lake" |publisher=Minnesota Historical Society|date=2012|access-date=October 6, 2015}}</ref> The majority of these Mennonite families came from the [[Molotschna|Molotschna Colony]], located near the present-day city of [[Melitopol]], Ukraine. However, a number of [[Manitoba]] Mennonites originally from the [[Chortitza Colony]], near the present-day Ukrainian city of [[Zaporizhzhia]], also settled in the Mountain Lake area.<ref name=GAMEO-ML>{{cite web|author1=Friesen, J. John|author2=Krahn, Cornelius|author-link1=Mountain Lake (Minnesota, USA)|title=Mountain_Lake_(Minnesota,_USA)|url=http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Mountain_Lake_(Minnesota,_USA)|website=Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online|publisher=GAMEO|access-date=December 15, 2015|date=1957}}</ref> By 1880, it is estimated that some 295 Mennonite families had settled there.<ref name=GAMEO-ML/> Because Mountain Lake was already an established community and its surrounding farmland largely surveyed, the Mennonites could not arrange themselves in the traditional communal villages they had been accustomed to in their Ukrainian colonies. This forced them to adapt to American-style, single family farms and to live amongst their non-Mennonite neighbors.<ref name="MHS"/> As settlement continued, the Mennonites of Mountain Lake had soon established a successful and cohesive community, “based primarily on agriculture and local commerce.”<ref name="MHS"/> For many decades thereafter, they retained the speaking of [[Plautdietsch language|Plautdietsch]], the Mennonite variation of [[Low German]].<ref name="MHS"/> On October 14, 1889, the ''Konference der Vereinigten Mennoniten-Brueder von Nord America'' was founded in Mountain Lake.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Dyck|first1=CJ|title='An Introduction to Mennonite History|date=1993|edition=Revised|publisher=Herald Press|isbn=0-8361-3620-9|page=311}}</ref><ref name=GAMEO>{{cite web|last1=Epp|first1=H.F.|last2=Schultz|first2=Arnold C.|title=Fellowship of Evangelical Bible Churches|url=http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Fellowship_of_Evangelical_Bible_Churches|website=Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online|publisher=GAMEO|access-date=September 23, 2016}}</ref> Elder Aaron Wall, founder of the Bruderthaler Church of Mountain Lake and Elder Isaac Peters of the Ebenezer Church of [[Henderson, Nebraska]] were instrumental in the establishment of this new Mennonite denomination. Known today as the ''[[Fellowship of Evangelical Bible Churches]]'' (FEBC), for many years the conference was popularly called the Bruderthaler Conference,<ref name=GAMEO/><ref name="FEBCHistory">{{cite web|title=A Brief History of the Fellowship| url=http://www.fellowshipforward.org/history.html |publisher=Fellowship of Evangelical Bible Churches |access-date=September 23, 2016}}</ref> because of the influential nature of the Mountain Lake founding church. In 1914 the name was officially changed to ''The Defenceless Mennonite Brethren in Christ of North America''. The name was changed once again, in 1937, to ''Evangelical Mennonite Brethren'' (EMB). The denominational headquarters was located in Mountain Lake until 1956.<ref name=GAMEO/> Around the year 1905, several local men founded the Mennonite hospital of Mountain Lake. The institution struggled until 1912, when it was sold and reorganized as the Bethel Deaconess Hospital. The physicians in charge were Dr. Piper of Mountain Lake and Dr. Sogge of [[Windom, Minnesota|Windom]], who were assisted by three deaconess sisters. The hospital was managed by a local board of directors consisting of one member from each of the town's five Mennonite churches.<ref name=Brown/>
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