Vernon Center began in "old town" on the lowlands south of the Blue Earth River. The village was plotted in 1856. The town site was started by Col. Benjamin F. Smith and Benjamin McCracken of Mount Vernon, Ohio. In 1856 a town site company was formed in Mt. Vernon Ohio, called the Blue Earth Company. Their goal was to start a town on the Blue Earth River in Blue Earth County. That town became known as the Village of Vernon. It boasted three stores, a blacksmith shop, a hotel, a steam saw mill, a post office and school. Vernon Center was also stagecoach stop on the run to Blue Earth. In the Indian massacre of 1862, part of the town was raided and a large stockade was built, to protect the settlers. This stockade surrounded the hotel and general store and was located about where Pumpkinland is today.

When a branch of the St. Paul and Sioux City railroad came through in 1879, it passed to the east of the village. The depot was three-quarters of a mile northeast of the old town on high land across the river. This site was originally called Edgewood. Setters from the "old town" of Vernon Center gradually transferred to the town on the hill. One of the first settlers to do so, was Joseph Robinson and his wife Florence (formerly Johanna Reed). The village of Vernon Center at its current location, was incorporated in 1899. There were four grain elevators, three general stores, a lumber yard, furniture store, meat market, hotel, bank millinery shop, shoe shop, jewelry store, pump works, two drug stores, post office, three blacksmith shops, two hardware stores and a doctor's office.

More history about Vernon Center can be found in a new book by Wayne Krosch: "Vernon Center Minnesota 150 Years 1856-2006". It is available for $5 at City Hall.