RAGBRAI 2012: Hanover, pop. 3, swells with RAGBRAI riders.

Mon, Jul 23, 2012 | by Josh Hafner

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HANOVER, Ia. — The barely-there town of Hanover, population 3, swelled today as it welcomed thousands of cyclists who took in its historic barns, saw a steam engine and petted a llama or two.

The “town”, most call it a village, is the size of a small city block and was resurrected by a historical society that formed in the ’90s.

“We’re just enough to get on the map,” said Marylin Hinkeldey, one half of the Cherokee couple who led Hanover’s historic renovation. “We were off for a while, but we got back on.”

Hinkeldey and her husband, Arlin Hinkeldey learned Hanover would host RAGBRAI as a pass-through town in January and began planning. On Monday, each member of the town’s 15-member board came into pop popcorn, dish out pancakes and sell sausages. All their grandkids helped, too.

“We thought if 2,000 stopped by, we’d be lucky,” said Marilyn, 75. “It’s been steady since 6:30 a.m. The first guy came by at 5:30. ”

The walls of every barn, machine shed and general store on the tiny tract held resting bikes by 9 a.m. Jane Kirchhofer, a cyclist and lawyer from St. Paul, Minn, knelt to photograph a small calf.

“It’s very authentic, very Iowa,” said Kirchhofer.”I’ve never seen a cow on RAGBRAI. I think there’s a llama in that barn, too.”

There were a couple llamas, actually, and several chickens. Adjacent to that was a machine shed of old John Deere equipment. And next to that, in a mill house labeled “Das Mühle Haus,” was Arlin Hinkeldey. Hanover is his passion project. Arlin would be Hanover’s mayor, if Hanover had one.

The village sprouted up to cater to to the after-service crowds of a church up the road during the horse and buggy days. The residents, German immigrants, named it Hanover after their hometown in Germany, Arlin said.

“The railroad was originally supposed to come through here. For some reason they changed their mind and didn’t,” he said. “It basically dried up after that.”

The general store, the village’s last surviving enterprise, shuttered in 1964.

“It started with this building,” Arlin said inside the Mühle Haus. “See, my grandfather built this, so I’m kind of sentimental about it.”

Arlin Hinkeldey loves history. People should know where they come from, he said, how hard their forefathers sweated before the days of air-conditioned tractors with CD players.

The general store was restored next, followed by the blacksmiths shop. Over years, Hanover became the historic respite peddled through this week. In one house on the village’s edge, it’s only modern-day giveaway, lives a family of three who help keep an eye on Hanover until it’s yearly polka festival in late August.

“This is as big as Hanover ever was,” a volunteer in the general store told two cyclists from Italy. “You’re riding down our Main Street right now.”

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