Hille, Germany - History

History

Hille was and is inluenced by its agricultural character. Besides the large farms, which grew because of the good loess soil of the Hartumer Loess Plate, there were many small homes for contract workers into the 19th Century. The contract workers earned a supplemental income through manual labor such as the weaving of linen. Cigarmaking arrived in Hille at the end of the 19th Century. Especially toward the end of the 19th Century many residents of the Hille villages emigrated to the USA. Their goal was mostly the state of New York and especially the city of Schenectady. Men from Hille also travelled by foot to Holland for seasonal work such as mowing grass. Many of them remained there.

Around the middle of the 19th Century the transportation infrastructure became significantly enhanced by road construction under the leadership of Carl von Schlotheim who was Land Councilor in the Prussian Kreis Minden. While the primary goal of this program was job creation, it served to boost the economy of the Kreis. The railroad reached this rural region in the early 20th Century. The Mindener Kreisbahnen opened a stretch of narrow gauge line to Eickhorst in 1903. The line was extended to Lübbecke in 1907. It was converted to standard gauge at a later time. The objective of this Prussian improvement was rural area development: transport of chemical fertilizer, transport of agricultural products to Minden and Lübbecke and further transport from there to other citys by the State railway. The construction of the Mindener Kreisbahn was also a good job creator, with thousands of workers earning their bread and keep. The stretch from Hille to Lübbecke was shut down in 1967 and subsequently demolished. Freight service still exists between the harbour at the village of Hille and the city of Minden. Even Oberlübbe had a narrow gage railway connection from 1897 to 1937. The so called "Wallücker Willem" connected the quarry mine near Wallücke in the Wiehengebirge with Löhne and Kirchlengern to the south. It transported passengers as well as iron ore over the mountain ridge.

Hiller Platt, a dialect of Low German, was spoken by most residents into recent times. It had considerable variation from village to village. The use of this language has declined significantly.