Conestogo

Conestogo sits where the Conestogo River meets the Grand, a leafy village of gracious homes between the two rivers. Its historic core has Victorian-era houses, the Old Township Hall, the former United Church of 1878 and the Black Forest Inn, and many of the older buildings are made of brick from the village's own two brickyards. The two-span steel truss bridge of 1886 still carries the road over the river. The greens of the Conestoga Golf Club lie at the edge of the village, and the Avon Trail, which runs from St. Marys, ends here. On calm mornings the rivers are smooth and quiet below the bridge, and Waterloo is a short drive south.

The area was first settled in the 1820s, mostly by Mennonites from Pennsylvania. David Musselman dammed the Conestogo River in 1844 and built the township's first flour mill. The village, then called Musselman's Mills, was renamed Conestogo in 1852, after the Conestoga River in Pennsylvania. By the 1860s it had mills, a foundry and four hotels. Growth slowed after that, which kept much of the village's early architecture in place.

The 2021 census counted about 445 homes in Conestogo. About nine in ten are single detached houses, and the rest are semi-detached. About a third were built before 1981, and about four in ten between 1981 and 2000. About one in five were built in 2001 or later, most of them between 2006 and 2010.

Sawmill Road (Regional Road 17) runs through the village, west to St. Jacobs, about 4 km away, and east across the Grand River toward Bloomingdale and Breslau. Uptown Waterloo is about 9 km away in a straight line, and Highway 85 is a short drive west. Highway 401 is about 19 km to the south. The Avon Trail ends in Conestogo.

Conestogo Park on Evening Star Lane and Priddle Park on Golf Course Road are the township parks. The Conestoga Golf Club is at the edge of the village, and the Grand and Conestogo rivers run along two sides of it. St. Jacobs, with its library, arena and shops, is about 4 km away, and the north end of Waterloo is close by.

• Conestogo Public School — JK to Grade 8. The public school for the village, on Sawmill Road.
• Elmira District Secondary School — Grades 9 to 12. The public secondary school, in Elmira.
• St. Luke Catholic School — JK to Grade 8. The nearest Catholic elementary school, about 4.3 km away in north Waterloo, with French immersion.
• St. David Catholic Secondary School — Grades 9 to 12. The Catholic secondary school for St. Luke's family of schools, in Waterloo.