The first documented history of the area was in 1147 and shows that, what is now known as Lehrte, was a relatively small farming village.

When work on the railway line commenced, Lehrte had 755 inhabitants; 60 years later the population had increased approximately ten times.

In 1898 the area of Lehrte was granted municipal rights and formally recognised as a town.

With the railway well and truly established, industry grew within Lehrte, including clay works, a mineral fertilizer works, a cement factory, canned goods and a sugar factory in 1883 which, until 2002, dominated the centre of the town.

[citation needed] Since the 1920s, a large substation has existed in Ahlten, which in 1944 was the end of the experimental Lehrte-Misburg HVDC line.