Hennenman is a small town in the Lejweleputswa District Municipality

Lejweleputswa District Municipality

Lejweleputswa is one of the 5 districts of Free State province of South Africa. The seat of Lejweleputswa is Welkom. The majority of its 657 019 people speak Sotho...

 of the Free State

Free State

The Free State is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Bloemfontein, which is also South Africa's judicial capital. Its historical origins lie in the Orange Free State Boer republic and later Orange Free State Province. The current borders of the province date from 1994 when the Bantustans...

 province of South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

. The town is unusual in the district as its economy is based mainly on agriculture

Agriculture

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

 not gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

. The town, which started out as a railway station, was previously called Ventersburg Road. The name was changed in 1927

1927 in South Africa

-Events:* 20 August - The restored manor house of Groot Constantia is opened again after a fire devastated it in 1925-Births:* 13 January - Sydney Brenner, biologist and Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate, is born in Germiston, Johannesburg...

 to Hennenman Station after a prominent local farmer, Mr. P.F. Hennenman of the farm Swartpan. On the 5 December 2000, Hennenman was incorporated into the Matjhabeng Local Municipality

Matjhabeng Local Municipality

Matjhabeng Local Municipality is an administrative area in the Lejweleputswa District of the Free State in South Africa, that includes the city of Welkom. The name is a Sesotho word meaning "where nations meet". It is derived from the migrant labour system where people from various countries like...

 with the city of Welkom

Welkom

Welkom is a city in the Free State province of South Africa, located 160 kilometres northeast of Bloemfontein, the provincial capital. Welkom received municipal status in 1961 and was declared a city in 1968 on the 14th of February...

 and the towns of Allanridge

Allanridge

Allanridge is a gold mining town in the Lejweleputswa District Municipality of the Free State province in South Africa. It is the main centre of the Lorraine Gold Mining Company and is dominated by the tall headgear and complex reduction works that processes thousands of tons of gold-bearing ore...

, Odendaalsrus

Odendaalsrus

Odendaalsrus is the oldest gold mining town in the Lejweleputswa District Municipality of the Free State province in South Africa.-History:It started out in 1912 as a ramshackle collection of farms and a central church that became a town. In April 1946 gold was struck on the farm Geduld near the town...

, Ventersburg

Ventersburg

Ventersburg is a small town in the Lejweleputswa District Municipality of the Free State province in South Africa. It was established on the farm Kromfontein which was owned by PA Venter who died in 1857. His son allowed a Reform Church to be established on the farm in 1864 and by 1871, the first...

 and Virginia

Virginia, Free State

Virginia is a gold mining town located in the Lejweleputswa District Municipality of the Free State province in South Africa about 140 km northeast of Bloemfontein the provincial capital...

.

Prior to and during Apartheid, black people lived in a separate area to the whites in the southern part of Hennenman which came into existence in 1944

1944 in South Africa

-Births:* 12 January - Eileen KaNkosi-Shandu, educationist and leader of the Inkatha Women Brigade, is born* 3 March - Jerrold Kessel, South-African-born Israeli journalist and author, is born -Deaths:...

. However in 1952

1952 in South Africa

-March:* 23 March - Ex-regent Mshiyeni, uncle of Zulu King Cyprian Bhekuzulu kaSolomon, warns the Zulu people not to participate in the Defiance Campaign...

, the houses were torn down by the Apartheid government because they were too close to the white areas. The residents were forcefully relocated to a new township 15 km from Hennenman, ironically called Vergenoeg (an Afrikaans word meaning, sufficiently distant). The name was later changed to Phomolong.