Ghent was begun as a Catholic colony for Belgian, French Canadian, and Irish immigrants and has remained nearly the same ethnic fabric.
Belgian settlers began arriving in 1880. Young Belgian farmers were attracted to the fertile Minnesota territory because of heavy rents on Belgian farmland and inheritance practices where the eldest sons gained their fathers' land.
The period 1880-81 was the practical founding of Grandview and the naming of Ghent after the Belgian city. Ghent was incorporated in 1899 with a population of 119.
A more modern history of Ghent includes the beginning of annual Belgian-American Days in 1952. The population in 1950 was 332. Ghent's present population is 301.