This little town owes it's existance to the Milwaukee, St. Paul Railroad. Zeeland was organized as a village in 1905. The Dutch, who had settled nearby gave it the name of their home town "Zeeland". On January 29, 1946, it became incorporated as a city.
The oldest German Russian Catholic settlements in North Dakota were made in 1994 in McIntosh county about five miles northeast of present day Zeeland. The church organized there was St. John's church. The settlers were for the most part from the villages near Odessa: Strassburg, Selz, Mannheim, Baden, Elsass, and also from Krasna, Bessarbia. A few came from Kandel, Franzfeld, and Josephstal. The family of Adam Yangula who came from the Crimea and had originally settled in 1875 at menno, South Dakota was one of the oldest Catholic families from Russia to arrive in Dakota. Mr. Yangula donated ten acres of land and in 1999 the first church was built. It was dedicated on May 12, 1889. Before 1914, the St. John's congregation counted 300 families. In 1970, however only thirty-one families remained in this old congreation and it was resolved into the St. Andrew church at Zeeland.