An agricultural town in the Orange Free State province, Reitz is 51km from Bethlehem. At an altitude of 1622 metres, Reitz has an annual rainfall of about 686mm.
In its earliest recorded history, the site on which the town of Reitz developed was on the farm Langspruit, owned by Hendrik Davel. He sold 6400 hectares of it to Jan Roos who developed an important outspan for transport riders. A shop owner named Singer opened a store there and managed the post, which became known as Singer's Post. With the arrival of a blacksmith and a few others the need for a town began to grow. Jan Serfontein, heading a commission to do this, sold the first plots of Amsterdam, which was what they named the new village. Five years later when the Volksraad authority to establish the town came through, President Reitz visited to make the proclamation personally, and the people living there requested that the place take his name. In 1903 it became a municipal area.
During the Second Anglo-Boer War the Orange Free State government temporarily stayed there and was nearly captured on 10 July 1901. Reitz featured politically again when; in 1914 the majority of farmers joined the pro-German insurgents of the Rebellion.
Potgieter, D.J. (ed)(1973). Standard Encyclopedia of Southern Africa, Vol.9, Cape Town: Nasou, p.279.