Haaksbergen is a village and municipality, the inhabitants are 18,000 inhabitants and 5000 inhabitants respectively. The municipality calls itself Ster in Twente. To the south of Haaksbergen lies the estate Lankheet, where the water of the Buurserbeek is purified in reed filters.
The first inhabitants within the current municipalities settled near Buurse along the Buurserbeek, probably already around 800 BC. The village of Haaksbergen occurred much later, around 800 AD, as an agricultural settlement further downstream to the same Buurserbeek. Here are remnants of a wooden church of the year 1000, the forerunner of the current St. Pancratius church. The first mention of Haaksbergen dates from 1188.
Around 1400 the Buurserbeek, which until then flowed through the village, was moved and connected to the Schipbeek south of Haaksbergen. This resulted in a water connection with the IJssel and the Hanseatic cities of Deventer, Zwolle and Zutphen could be reached via the water. In the 18th century a grain mill was built, called De Korenbloem.
As in the rest of Twente, the textile industry became very important since the mid-19th century. At the top, 80% of Haaksbergen's workforce was employed in the textile sector. In the early 1970s, the textile industry in Twente and thus also collapsed in Haaksbergen.
With the Korenmolen de Korenbloem and the St. Pancratius Church there are 20 registrations in the national monument register in Haaksbergen. These include the Synagogue, a coach house and the castle itself of Blankenborgh, Stationsgebouw Museum Buurtspoorweg and house 't Fort.
