The Rhenish Mission Society used Otjimbingwe as a central location for
their Namibian mission in 1849. Johannes Rath and his family settled in
the area on 11 July that year, and the settlement was declared official
in 1864. A Rhenish church, constructed in 1867, is still standing and is
considered one of the city's main attractions.
In 1855, copper was
found in the nearby Khomas highlands and the Walwich Bay Mining Company
established its offices in the city. However the supply had been
exhausted by 1860 and the buildings were shut down.
Under the control
of Commissioner Dr Heinrich Ernst G�ring, the place became the seat of
the colonial administration, the de facto capital, in the late 1880s. On
16 July 1888, German South-West Africa's first post office opened in
town. However, control gradually shifted to Windhoek, and the civil
administration moved there in 1892. The railway line from Windhoek and
Swakopmund was completed in the early 1900s, bypassing Otjimbingwe, and
the city greatly declined in size thereafter
