In 1873, Mennonite immigrants from the 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.” The majority of these Mennonite families came from the 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. By 1880, it is estimated that some 295 Mennonite families had settled there.