The village was first mentioned in 1342 as "to Hovelde". The etymology is unclear. Havelte is an
esdorp on a sandy ridge. It developed in the Late Middle Ages into a little village with four triangular village squares. The
hunebed (
dolmen) is located in
Havelterberg near Havelte and is the second largest of the Netherlands. It spans nearly , and contains 9 capstones and 21 side stones. It used to have a beautiful ring of 40 stones. There were still 24 left in 1918 when
Albert Egges van Giffen researched the dolmen. Nowadays, there are only 10 left. All the stones have been put back in there place in 1918. The Dutch Reformed is located somewhat off-centre, because the villages of
Darp and
Uffelte had decided to build a joint church halfway between their villages. In October 1942, an airport was built near Havelte by the
Luftwaffe. 5,600 forced labourers were transported to Havelte to construct the airport. It was hardly ever used, and attacked several times. On 24 March 1945, the Americans dropped 271 tons of bombs on the airport. The location is nowadays a nature area and some of the German buildings have remained. serving as headquarters and base of most of the units of the
43rd Mechanized Brigade. Havelte was a separate municipality until 1998, when it became a part of Westerveld. ==Gallery==