Mitchell, Manitoba is a local urban district and population centre nestled in the Rural Municipality of Hanover, Canada. Just three kilometers west of Steinbach, Manitoba along Provincial Highway 52, Mitchell is home to a population of 3,136 as of 2016, making it the 19th largest population centre in Manitoba.
The lands that now form Mitchell were originally inhabited by the nomadic Ojibway-speaking Anishinabe people. On 3 August 1871, the Anishinabe people signed Treaty 1 and moved onto reserves such as the Brokenhead Indian Reserve and Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation Reserve.
The area was then settled by Russian Mennonite settlers in 1874. At that time, there were dozens of villages in the East Reserve, three of which, Vollwerk, Ebenfeld, and Reichenbach, were eventually absorbed into the new community of Mitchell. The community was renamed after the surrounding school district established in 1919. The Canadian government deliberately chose English names for the school districts, such as Mitchell, Bothwell, Randolph, and others in an attempt to assimilate the Mennonites into Canadian culture.
Vollwerk, which later became Mitchell, was the home of obserschulz Jacob Peters, who led the Mennonite delegation to Canada and was a signatory of the Privilegium. A cairn and gravestone honouring him can be found at the historic Vollwerk Cemetery on Reichenbach Road in Mitchell. The Stahn family, who sold much of the land that would eventually become the modern day community of Mitchell, are also honoured at the Vollwerk Cemetery.
Mitchell boasts a full range of community-run recreational facilities, including an indoor arena, baseball fields, soccer pitches, and tennis courts. The Mitchell Arena, built in 1979, is home to the community's ice hockey teams, the Mitchell Mustangs, who play in various Eastman Minor Hockey leagues. The Mitchell Mustangs have been members of the Hanover Tache Junior Hockey League since 1987 and previously played in the Manitoba Junior 'B' Hockey League. The Mustangs have also fielded senior teams in the past that played in the Hanover-Tache and Carillon Senior Hockey Leagues.
While Mitchell's close proximity to the city of Steinbach means residents mostly shop and conduct business there, Mitchell does have several of its own businesses and services. These include a Co-op gas bar and convenience store, a second convenience store, a number of churches, an auto repair business, and an assortment of home-based businesses.
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Mitchell had a population of 2,828 living in 858 of its 883 total private dwellings. This was a change of 24.1% from its 2016 population of 2,279. With a land area of 3.3 km2 (1.3 sq mi), Mitchell had a population density of 857.0/km2 (2,219.5/sq mi) in 2021.
