[9] In 1871, the Imperial Crown of Great Britain and Ireland and Anishinabe people signed Treaty 1, after which time the Canadian government began recruiting European farmers to the region, establishing the English and Scottish settlement of Clear Springs in 1872, just north of the present day location of Steinbach, and partially contained within the modern city limits.

By the 1870s, some Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites in Ukraine became dissatisfied with increasing Russification and the removal of their military exemption and were persuaded by Hespeler to investigate Manitoba as a possibility for relocation.

[11] Aided by their Métis neighbours, the families disembarked on the far west side of the reserve at the forks of the Rat and Red Rivers, near present-day Niverville.

After a plague of grasshoppers destroyed the crops in 1876, residents of Steinbach met in Blumenort to discuss the possibility of migrating to Minnesota or Nebraska.

[8] In 1877, Lord Dufferin toured Manitoba's new Mennonite settlements and stopped just west of Steinbach where he could see "half a dozen villages" in the distance.

Barkman left Steinbach without religious leadership for a number of years, creating a vacuum that made the villagers receptive to John Holdeman when he visited in 1881.

[11] Many of the new immigrants were Bergthaler Mennonites, but Steinbach also was the destination for new German and Lutheran settlers, as well as some British families who had previously settled in the Clearspring Settlement slightly to the north.

At the same time, there was the out-migration of the more conservative Mennonites, who left the area for Mexico and Paraguay, after the Canadian government required them to learn English and attend public schools, issues which seemed to be in violation of the Privilegium signed in 1873.

[19] Moscow Road, which had been pejoratively named to refer to the Russlander Mennonites who lived there, was later renamed McKenzie Avenue after the Prime Minister who had allowed them to come to Canada as refugees.

Smith, was a local bank manager who organized many of Steinbach's first recreational activities, which the Mennonite population had been reluctant to adopt on their own.

[23] Partially in response to the destruction of heritage buildings in the area, such as the historic housebarn destroyed by A.D. Penner, residents in the 1960s saw the need to preserve and remember the Mennonite history of the region.

[8] In 1966, infamous gold thief Ken Leishman escaped from Headingly Jail and stole an airplane from Steinbach, solidifying his nickname as the "Flying Bandit".

For the first time since the earliest European settlers arrived in the 1860s and 1870s, a member of the British royal family paid a personal visit to the communities of La Broquerie, Steinbach, Sarto, Grunthal and St. Pierre.

For these communities and their people the visit by Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles on the eve of Manitoba's 100th birthday highlighted a century of economic and cultural development.

[29] After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Aussiedler Mennonites, who had remained in the Soviet Union (particularly Siberia and Kazakhstan) throughout much of the 20th century, or who had resettled in Germany during the 1970s, began to immigrate to the area and continued to do so through the 1990s and early 2000s.

In 1950, however, Steinbach citizens voted to prohibit all liquor sales in the community, although a drinking establishment on Main Street called The Tourist Hotel was allowed to remain, until it closed in 1973.

Large manufacturing plants, especially those operated by Barkman, Bausch and Loewen Windows (which is also headquartered in Steinbach), create a significant number of jobs.

[64] This combination has helped many different mid-sized and large-sized businesses in manufacturing, transportation, agribusiness, pharmaceuticals, retail, and financial services such as the Steinbach Credit Union, to grow with the city.

[66] Crops grown on the fertile farmland surrounding Steinbach primarily include canola, corn, alfalfa, as well as barley, soybeans, oats, and wheat.

[76] Approximately twenty-four per cent of Steinbach residents claim German ancestry, though this may include those from Germany itself or of Mennonite background, which would more accurately be described as Dutch.

The city and surrounding area comprise the provincial riding of Steinbach, which has been represented in the Manitoba Legislative Assembly by MLA Kelvin Goertzen since 2003.

[99] Regional cuisine unique to Steinbach includes various Mennonite dishes such as vereniki, farmer sausage, sunflower seeds, yerba mate and roll kuchen.

[100][101][102][103] Mennonite homes frequently serve a light lunch on Sundays called faspa consisting of deli meats, cheese curds, pickles, buns, and dessert such as plautz.

[121] Steinbach has also been home to novelist Byron Rempel, memoirist Lynette Loeppky, poets Lynnette D'anna, Luann Hiebert, and Audrey Poetker, as well as historians Royden Loewen and Delbert Plett, among others.

In 2024, writer Andrew Unger initiated a plan to have a historic plaque placed in front of Miriam Toews's teenage home in Steinbach.

It provides a glimpse at the life of Mennonite settlers through interactive displays in its year-round indoor gallery and a reconstructed street village, open seasonally.

Currently, Steinbach's oldest media outlet is The Carillon, an award-winning weekly newspaper founded in 1946 by Eugene Derksen that covers the news of Southeastern Manitoba.

[137] A number of Steinbach curlers have gone on to have success at the provincial and national level, most notably Brier-winners Vic Peters and Chris Neufeld.

The 2009 Allan Cup featured two Steinbach-based teams, the host Steinbach North Stars and the Manitoba champion South East Prairie Thunder competing in the tournament.

[140] Notable professional hockey players from Steinbach include Jon Barkman, Ken Block, Paul Dyck, Dale Krentz, Jeff Penner, Sean Tallaire, and Ian White, as well as NHL coach Ralph Krueger.