In 2025, the majority of Niverville’s residents have only ever known the town as a town that’s fast-tracked to becoming a city.

According to the Manitoba Municipal Act, a municipality is eligible for the city designation when it reaches a population of 7,500, with a minimum density of 400 people per square kilometer.

“The most recent official survey from Statistics Canada in 2021 has placed us at a population of 5,947,” says Mayor Myron Dyck. “However, the most recent Southern Health population report from 2024 has Niverville at a population of 7,110.”

The next census is scheduled for May 2026, and the results will be telling.

When the town does arrive at the 7,500-person benchmark, Dyck says it will be up to the province’s Minister of Municipal Relations and Northern Affairs to officially declare Niverville a city.

“There isn’t much that really changes other than what title Niverville has,” says Dyck. “It is more so just a marker of an arbitrary population level. All municipalities have the exact same powers and responsibilities as defined by the Municipal Act, regardless of population size or title. Becoming a city has no functional change to the administration or feel of the community.”

Even so, it would be imprudent of a municipal council of any fast-growing community not to vigilantly plan for future infrastructure needs. Niverville is taking this seriously, based on the recent addition of a water treatment plant and the future construction of a wastewater treatment plant.

“There has been some discussion, predominantly focused on how it changes our strategy on how to market ourselves externally as a place to do business,” says Dyck. “Also how Niverville will continue to be the community we all love because it is the residents who make it great, not its title or status or growth.”

Manitoba is home to ten cities. In order of population, they are: Winnipeg, Brandon, Steinbach, Winkler, Portage la Prairie, Thompson, Dauphin, Morden, Selkirk, and Flin Flon. The last urban municipality to gain city status in Manitoba was Morden in 2012.

Not Always a Boom Town

Niverville hasn’t always been the boom town it is today. Only in the last couple of decades has the population soared.

What many don’t know is that Niverville’s earliest developer, William Hespeler, intended from the start for this to be a large progressive community. It just took more than a century for that to happen.

In 1874, the federal government determined that a railway was needed between the U.S. and Winnipeg, and they commissioned railway contractor Joseph Whitehead to build it.

Niverville’s location was chosen by Whitehead as a staging area for the hundreds of men, horses, and supplies needed to build that railway. The name came in 1877, when the Canadian Pacific Rail company christened the station Niverville after a long-serving military officer: Joseph-Claude Boucher de Niverville.

Just as the village was getting underway, 65 Mennonite families arrived at the confluence of the Red and Rat Rivers, just a few miles east.

Hespeler, the man who’d facilitated the Mennonite immigration, looked upon this site and perceived its potential as a hotbed for grain production and transportation in Manitoba.

Niverville historian Ernie Braun tells the story.

“In 1878, Hespeler commissions William Pearce, an official Canadian land surveyor, to draw up a plan for Niverville,” Braun says. “And the plan has 600 lots and six streets… This guy was a dreamer. He commissions a livery stable and a grain elevator, and he builds some houses and a hotel. Before you know it, we have a train, a post office, a telegraph, and a railway station.”

Ironically, few of those early Mennonites settled in Niverville. Instead the village drew in people from a wide array of nationalities. Niverville’s railway station was run by a Scot and the postmaster was German. Another German, John Wittick, settled in Niverville and built the first grain elevator, becoming the local grain buyer.

“Seeing the potential here, entrepreneurs begin to come,” says Braun. “Herman Penner, the first Russian-Mennonite millionaire in Canada, arrives to build a store right next to the hotel. By the late 1880s, urban Niverville is characterized by mostly non-Mennonite names.”

The hotel keeper was an Irishman. Other prominent residents included Jewish and Scottish merchants. A Russian-born immigrant peddled goods door-to-door.

“In 1906, the Bronstones purchased the lumberyard, and for the next two generations that Jewish family was synonymous with Niverville. Bronstone started the Niverville Credit Union. He brought the first electrical light plant in 1928.”

Even with all this progress, Niverville’s growth didn’t line up with Hespeler’s original speculation. In 1923, there were only 20 households here. The community experienced a shot of growth during the second wave of Mennonite immigration in the years following, but then it slowed again.

In 1969, Niverville broke away from the Hanover municipality to become its own autonomous incorporated village, thus establishing the community’s first council. They set out immediately to install sewer lines and pave streets. The population sat at around 800 at the time.

In 1991, Niverville’s population reached 1,500, granting town status.

“After 2000, Hespeler’s dream comes true,” says Braun. “The boom arrives and suddenly, over a short period of time, this predominantly Mennonite community regains its cosmopolitan complexion as people move in from Winnipeg to a place where they could belong. None of this is due to the railway. It is due to an entire spectrum of other factors, but foremost among them is a visionary community spirit and dynamic civic and business leaders.”