North Dakota: A Guide to the Northern Prairie State

by Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration for the State of North Dakota

FARGO

Railroad Stations: Northern Pacific, Bdwy. at Front St.; Great Northern, Bdwy. at 5th Ave. N.; Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul (Milwaukee), 1101 2nd Ave. N.

Bus Stations: Union Station, 502 N. P. Ave., for Northland Greyhound, Checker, Jack Rabbit, and Triangle Lines; Cole Hotel, 407½ N. P. Ave., for Liederbach Line.

Airport: Hector Field, NW. outskirts of city, ½ m. W. of US 81, Northwest Airlines, taxi fare 50c, time 10 min.; day and night service, public hangars.

Taxis: 25c anywhere in city, 10c for each additional passenger.

City Bus Line: Intra-city, fare 10c.

Traffic Regulations: Front St. and 1st Ave. N. (US 10), 13th St. (US 81), 10th, and 4th Sts. are through streets. Watch for stop signs and street signals; no U-turn on through streets; turns in either direction at intersections. Street signs designate hour parking limits in business district.

Accommodations: 30 hotels; Fargo municipal tourist camp, Lindenwood Park, marked road ¾ m. S. of city limits, from S. end of 5th St.

Tourist Information Service: Greater North Dakota Association, 13 Bdwy.; Chamber of Commerce, 504 1st Ave. N.

Theaters and Motion Picture Houses: Little Country Theater, agricultural college, 13th St. at 12th Ave. N., college productions; Festival Hall, agricultural college, occasional touring artists and stock companies; 6 motion picture houses.

CITY OF FARGO

Golf: Municipal 18-hole course, Edgewood Park, 3 m. NE. of city limits (greens fee 35c).

Tennis: Courts at Oak Grove Park, E. end of 6th and 7th Aves. N.; Island Park, S. end of Bdwy.

Swimming: Outdoor, Red River bordering Island Park at E. end of 1st Ave. S.; indoor, Central High School, 3rd Ave. S. bet. 10th and 11th Sts., open during summer; Y. M. C. A., 632 1st Ave. N.

Baseball: Barnett Field, Fairgrounds, 19th Ave. N. and Bdwy., Northern League.

Skating: Island Park; Pershing Park, 14th St. at 8th Ave. N.

Skiing: Dovre Ski Club, highest artificial jump in United States (1936), 1½ m. N. of 19th Ave. on N. Bdwy. Rd.

Tobogganing: Island Park.

Hockey: Island Park, Commercial League and high school teams.

Annual Events: Ice Carnival, Island Park, January 1; Farmers' and Homemakers' Week, agricultural college, 3rd week in January; Bison Brevities, agricultural college, March, no fixed date; May Festival, agricultural college, 1st week in May; Northwest Norwegian Whist Tournament in connection with Norwegian Independence Day, May 17; Lilac Festival, agricultural college, May, no fixed date; State Fair, Fairgrounds, Bdwy. at 17th Ave. N., June, no fixed date; Valleyland Music Festival, June, no fixed date; State Golf Tournament, Fargo Country Club, July, no fixed date; Harvest Festival and Homecoming, agricultural college, October, no fixed date; 4-H Club Boys' and Girls' Achievement Institute, agricultural college, December, no fixed date.

FARGO (907 alt., 28,619 pop.) is on the Red River of the North at the entrance of two transcontinental railroads into the State. A small, youthful city, whose varied activities give its business section a somewhat disorderly air, it is the largest town in North Dakota. Over the flatness of an old lakebed, where ten thousand years ago the water of the melting glacier stood 200 feet deep, the city now widely spreads its homes, manufacturing plants, wholesale houses, trees and parks, schools and hospitals.

The trail which in 1871 led west from the Red River ferry, across the level floor of prehistoric Lake Agassiz, is now Front Street, which enters Fargo from the east to be greeted by the city's slum district, where dilapidated, unpainted frame shacks near the river give way westward to better buildings in a wholesaling district, until Broadway is reached. Broadway is the very heart of Fargo, a busy, crowded thoroughfare whose appearance often causes visitors to believe the city larger than it actually is. From its wide south end where it intersects Front, Broadway runs north, flanked for six blocks by two-and three-story store and office buildings. Two of North Dakota's four "skyscrapers" are on Broadway.

Fargo first appeared on the horizon in the 1870's as an outfitting point, the last outpost of settlement for those tens of thousands who pioneered in the State, and through the years of its growth has retained its first excuse for being, for it still serves as chief distributing point for a large agricultural area. Farm implements, foodstuffs, petroleum products, automobiles, and automotive equipment to the value of more than $45,000,000 are handled annually.

Although from a North Dakota standpoint it is an old city, Fargo is young enough to have a few of its founders still alive to tell of how they first advertised their spindly little city by boasting that its volunteer fire company, the Yerxa Hose Team, was the world's fastest; or of how, in later years, Fargo gloried in being the "Gateway City" to the "bread basket of the world," the fertile Red River Valley which real estate agents compared to the valley of the Nile. The Valley is no longer the intensive wheat-raising area it was, but the Fargo Chamber of Commerce will tell you that this very fertile flat land, through which meanders one of the few rivers that flow north, is literally a land of milk and honey, and others no less cognizant of their surroundings have changed the old slogan to the "food basket of the world."

Because it is the distributing point for an agricultural State, changes in farming methods have been reflected in the business life of the city. With the introduction of diversified farming to supplement wheat growing, Fargo became an important shipping center for grain, potatoes, dairy, and poultry products. In 1936 it was the largest primary sweet clover market in the world. Seed companies, creameries, a flour mill, bakeries, and implement distributors are evidence of the relationship between the city and the large farming area it serves. As late as 1927 Fargo was the world's third largest farm machinery distributing point, and, although it undoubtedly does not retain this position, as a shipping point it has become even more significant. A change in freight rates granted in 1925 by the Interstate Commerce Commission boosted Fargo volume. Two of the three railroads into the city are transcontinental lines which, with their branches, cover almost the entire State of North Dakota. Several "feeder lines" converge at Fargo and in addition there are a large number of trucking companies. The Minneapolis Star said in 1936:

"Fargo stands in exactly the same relationship to the northwest that Minneapolis has always stood.... The significant point is that it is some 250 miles nearer the western point of consumption. Goods that used to stop at Minneapolis for distribution now flow on to Fargo to be piecemealed out."

The largest single part of the wholesale trade is carried on by automotive distributors, including the Ford and Chevrolet Motor Companies. Processing accounts for the next largest part of the city's industry, and, although meat packing and creameries are important, there is a constant increase in the manufacture of steel, wood, and glass products. Fargo is likewise a banking and insurance center, and has the home offices of two insurance companies.

Its situation, at the point where railroads first entered the State, in what Stuart Chase has characterized as perhaps the richest farming region in the world, has combined with the North Dakota Agricultural College to make Fargo the natural agricultural headquarters for North Dakota. Results of experimental work conducted at the college station and its substations, extension work through 4-H and Homemakers clubs, and judging of farm produce at State and county fairs by college instructors, all contribute to the improvement of agricultural and rural life in the State.

Fargo's percentage of home ownership is far above the national average. Homes clustered around the business district are of early twentieth century frame vintage, while farther out newer cottages and bungalows, in English and Colonial style, behind small young trees and newly sprouting lawns, are characteristic of the more recent residential additions. Some of Fargo's finest homes are on Eighth Street South.

Fargo's public school system consists of 11 elementary schools, 3 junior high schools, and a senior high school; privately owned are 3 Catholic schools, a Lutheran school, 3 business colleges, 2 music conservatories, and 5 trade schools. The first Protestant church services in the southern Red River Valley in North Dakota were held in Fargo, and now more than 30 denominations have churches in the city. St. Mary's Cathedral is the seat of the diocese of the Roman Catholic Church for the eastern half of North Dakota, and Fargo is likewise the seat of the North Dakota diocese of the Episcopal Church.

The city's best-known musical group, the Amphion Male Chorus, composed of Fargo and Moorhead, Minn., singers, has toured nearby cities and eastern United States, giving concerts in New York and Philadelphia. Community singing is popular in Fargo, and during the summer months Island Park is the scene of outdoor concerts and singing contests. In June each year the music-minded of the Red River Valley gather in the city for the Valleyland Music Festival.

The agricultural college, always prominent in the cultural life of the city, has become even more important in late years with the increased number of college lyceum programs and the growth of the community theater movement. The Little Country Theater, the outstanding players' group in the State, has become a virtual authority on community theater organization and has received favorable notice nationally.

The city is named for William G. Fargo, a director of the Northern Pacific Railway and founder of the Wells-Fargo Express Company, and its early history is closely linked with that of the railroad. In 1871 the announcement that a railroad would be built "from Lake Superior to the Pacific Ocean" aroused much speculation as to where it would cross the Red River, and the untouched land along the river suddenly became populated. Three settlers, Jacob Lowell, Jr., Henry S. Back, and Andrew McHench, formed a triumvirate and patrolled the Red from the mouth of the Wild Rice to the Elm River from April to June 29 in an effort to discover "the first indications of the railroad crossing."

Meanwhile, Thomas H. Canfield of the Lake Superior and Puget Sound Company, a town site company auxiliary to the Northern Pacific, worked with the railroad engineers in seeking the best point for the line to cross the Red, since he wished to secure title to the land for his company before it was snatched up by some speculator in the hope of selling it to the railroad for a large sum. He and his engineers chose the present crossing because it was the highest point on the river and therefore in the least danger from floods. Andrew Holes, who with his wife had been touring the country in a covered wagon, was sent to Alexandria, Minn., to purchase the land on the east side of the river from its homesteader-owner, Joab Smith. In order to locate on the lands west of the Red it was necessary to plow a half acre of each section. Aided by Maj. G. G. Beardsley, Canfield secured the necessary farm equipment, hid it until Holes returned with the deed to the Minnesota property, and by moonlight secretly made the required improvements.

On June 29, while on his patrol, Lowell found a "Farmer Brown" squatted with three Scandinavian settlers on what became the Fargo town site. Although Farmer Brown was clothed in well worn overalls with a brown hat and hickory shirt and "sat with such ease and unconcern upon the handles of his plow," Lowell doubted his being a farmer. He hastily summoned Back and McHench, and the three, after a consultation, located near Farmer Brown on July 1 and 2, 1871. Shortly afterwards Farmer Brown's identity as Beardsley became known and a stampede of settlers followed. Since Beardsley and his party were in the employ of the Lake Superior and Puget Sound Company, and were not bona fide settlers, their prior occupancy was disregarded and later, after much litigation, the company withdrew its claim to the Fargo land, retaining only the purchased Moorhead area.

In September 1871 G. J. Keeney was appointed postmaster of Centralia, the little settlement that sprang up at the railroad crossing. Keeney was also a lawyer and real estate agent and his office was somewhat of a community center, according to one author, who wrote,

"He placed over the door of his 10 × 12 office the sign 'Post Office', on the door the sign 'Law Office', and in the window 'Land Office.' He raised lettuce on the earth roof of his log shack, and decorated the inside walls with papers sent by the folks back home. On entering, one was at once impressed with the air of cleanliness and comfort which pervaded the sanctum of this enterprising limb of the law, and it became a popular reading and rest room, but ... one assumed a risk in becoming interested in a story as some chapter of it was certain to be found on the ceiling."

During the winter following the location of the site, the settlement divided into two communities. "Fargo on the Prairie", headquarters of the Northern Pacific engineering department (near the corner of Broadway and Front Streets), was a tent town, home of the railroad engineers and surveyors and their wives and children. Although crude, the tents of "Fargo on the Prairie" had all the luxuries and conveniences that money could bring into the frontier settlement. In sharp contrast to this was "Fargo in the Timber," a town of huts, rough log houses, dugouts, and caves dug in the river banks, which stretched along both sides of the trail leading up from the ferry crossing. The two communities had nothing in common and residents of one would never be mistaken for residents of the other. The Timber used great quantities of whiskey, and popping revolvers made the night dangerous. The postmaster resorted to "double planking" the sleeping bunk of his tent for safety, and it was well that he did, for in later years he could show a board of the bunk with a bullet embedded in it.

A typical Timber sense of humor was displayed by the resident who, when buying a load of wood from two young Moorhead, Minn., men, had them haul it over to Fargo, and then drew his revolver and ordered the men back across the river without troubling to pay for the wood.

The difference between Fargo in the Timber and Fargo on the Prairie engendered a rivalry which both sides seldom neglected to intensify. Once when a wagonload of potatoes arrived for Gen. Thomas L. Rosser of the Prairie, residents of the Timber loosened the end-gates of the wagon and shot off revolvers to frighten the horses. As the team dashed wildly up the road, the potatoes rolled out of the wagon, to be picked up with relish by residents of the Timber, for many of whom those were the only potatoes obtainable all that winter.

On another occasion, as a sleigh-load of dressed turkeys and chickens bound for military headquarters drove through the one street of the Timber, with the driver muffled in a heavy buffalo-robe coat, residents of that community gradually lightened his load, audaciously picking off the fowls one by one, until all were taken. The driver did not know his loss until he reached the mess tent.

Whiskey "in a tin cup" was generally supposed to be more enlivening than if taken otherwise. One Sunday, as the time for church neared, a disappointed minister found only a small group gathered to hear his sermon. One of the men assured the clergyman, however, that there would be more in a few minutes. Taking a bell, he went up and down the street, ringing it and exhorting all Christians to attend an address by Rev. O. H. Elmer of Moorhead, "whiskey in a tin cup to be served free immediately after the service." A large crowd heard the sermon.

The law in early Fargo had its amusing moments. H. S. Back, justice of the peace, after performing the first wedding ceremony, invested his $3 fee in drinks for the crowd. The next day he tried his first case, found the prisoner guilty, and fined him $15 and costs. Informed by the prisoner's attorney that there was only $5 in sight, he changed the fine to $5 and no costs.

At this time Fargo was still Indian territory, and the Lake Superior and Puget Sound Company, hoping to regain possession of the town site, informed the Government that residents of the Timber were illegally located on Indian lands, and were also selling liquor. On the evening of February 16, 1872, troops passed through the city and camped for the night near General Rosser's headquarters on the Prairie. The troops, it was said, were on their way west to fight Indians, but a commotion before daylight the next morning awakened the Timber to find soldiers stationed before the door of each dwelling. All residents of the community were arrested and taken to the tent that served as a temporary jail, and those for whom the soldiers had warrants for selling liquor were removed to Pembina for trial. The others were ordered to leave the city lest their property be confiscated and burned and they be removed by force. They were not so easily defeated, however, and appealed to the Government for their land rights. A treaty was made with the Indians whereby the land was opened to settlement and those residents of the Timber who were guilty of no other offense were allowed to hold their land according to their original claims.

From a virgin prairie land where the Sioux battled the Chippewa, the terrain around Fargo became a rich farming country, well peopled and with acres of land sown to wheat. As late as 1868 the Red River Valley was generally believed to be a barren country, and in the early seventies Cass County was still a Sioux reservation. The first wheat sown by the acre was harvested in 1872, and there was barely enough grain to make bread for the few people in the vicinity. James Holes, whose farm was one mile north of the Northern Pacific depot in what is now Holes' addition to the city of Fargo, complained to the railroad that the exorbitant freight rate of 30c a bushel from Fargo to Duluth made wheat raising unprofitable for anything but local consumption. Freight rates were reduced in 1873, and Holes' 175-acre crop brought him nearly $5,000 in 1876 and by 1893 he was harvesting a 1,600-acre tract.

Bonanza farms, demonstrating the profit in large scale wheat raising, were largely responsible for the enormous increase in acreage and the equally large gain in population through immigration.

The influx of new settlers who came on the first train of the Northern Pacific across the Red River June 8, 1872 brought law and order to the city. Even the saloons felt the difference—one of them closed every Sunday, and an admonition printed on its curtains read, "Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy."

The Father Genin Mission House on the Red River above Fargo, established in 1866, was the only place of regular Christian worship until the Episcopal church was built in 1872. The first school was a private one, presided over by Miss Mercy Nelson, aged 15.

As the Yuletide season of 1873 approached, Fargo residents laid plans for a community Christmas celebration. A tree purchased for the occasion was stolen, however, and at a mass meeting of protest the suspected culprits, Moorhead, Minn., residents, were hanged in effigy from the railroad bridge. Next morning a mock funeral was held; a locomotive and boxcar draped in mourning proceeded slowly to the bridge, the effigies were cut down and buried in a snowdrift. That night the tree was returned. It was set up at 27 Front Street, and decorated with silver half dollars, one for each child under 14. A locomotive headlight was used to illumine the tree. Most of the children had never seen a half dollar, as the coins, intended as souvenirs of the occasion, were new at the time.

Although there was traffic on the Red River as early as 1857, not until the railroad crossed the Red, and Fargo became the southern terminus of river transportation, did steamboating boom. In the season of 1872 three steamers of 100-ton capacity reported carrying 1,000 passengers and 4,000 tons of goods on trips north. Bonanza farming brought greater need for transportation of grain and merchandise and by 1879 river traffic was at its height. There were several boatyards at Fargo, and Government engineers were employed in clearing and improving the channel of the river. The Kittson Line, owned by the Hudson's Bay Company, was the largest line on the river. It successfully outlived all competitors and enjoyed a monopoly a large part of the time. The income from a single eight-day trip of the steamer Sheyenne from Fargo to Fort Garry (Winnipeg, Manitoba) is said to have resulted in a profit large enough to cover the entire cost of building the steamer and the three barges it towed. Construction of the Great Northern Railway northward through the Red River Valley in 1880, however, inaugurated the decline of river transportation at Fargo.

By 1880 the city had a population of 2,693. An interesting cross-section view of the community is given by Finlay Dun, a British agricultural expert who toured the Red River Valley in 1879:

"In Fargo, built of stone and brick, there are already three good hotels, and another in contemplation; rather too many drinking saloons; a concert and ball room, where recently a grand subscription ball was given for which gentlemen's tickets were stated to be $25. There is a courthouse and two portly courteous judges, and a provost marshall or commandant of police, all those important officers holding their appointments from year to year; a successful daily newspaper, two corn-merchants, a thriving school, while preparations are being made for building churches. An Opera-Comique is in successful operation ... (and) from an area of many miles the dark-visaged farm-fellows with slouch hats, many with blue guernseys, some lumberers in red flannel jackets, and occasional Indians, and many half-breeds, congregated in large numbers to this opera-house in Fargo.... The immense and varied collections of agricultural implements are strikingly indicative of the breaking in of new lands. The light wagons are drawn by horses, mules, and oxen, but the ox teams are rather the most numerous."

Even as he wrote, Fargo was rapidly changing from a frontier village to a city, for he says, "But Fargo is a metropolis compared with the 'primordial cells' of towns budding at roadside stations...." While almost everyone in the city owned a buffalo-robe coat, and one of the duties of locomotive engineers was to use their steam whistles for fire alarms, a horse-car line was in operation during the winter of 1879 and 1880; unfortunately the track layers failed to prepare a firm bed for the rails and when spring came the track disappeared into the mud.

Early in the city's life William G. Fargo offered a premium of $500 for the establishment of a newspaper to be called the Fargo Express. In order to secure the bonus A. H. Moore and Seth Boney started a paper under that name in June 1873, but payment was withheld for the reason that it was printed on the press of the Glyndon, Minn., Gazette. On January 1, 1874, the Fargo Express, the first paper actually printed in Fargo, was published and received the promised bonus. From a combination of the Express and seven later papers has emerged the Fargo Forum, today leading the newspaper field in Fargo and the State. The Normanden, a Norwegian weekly, successor to the Red River Posten established in 1886, is the only foreign language paper published in the city.

Fargo had a private college as early as 1887, but when North Dakota was preparing for statehood in the late 1880's, and each of the various cities in the State was trying to annex at least one State-maintained institution, progressive Fargo citizens succeeded in getting the promise of an agricultural college. There was one close call, when only a veto by the governor averted transfer of the school to Valley City, but in the fall of 1889 Fargo saw the opening of the North Dakota Agricultural College. The prairie-land which had been designated as a campus boasted not one building, so rooms were rented from Fargo College until 1891, when the administration building was erected.

On a hot windy day in June 1893 the most severe fire in the city's history broke out on Front Street. Burning almost the entire business section and northeast part of the city, it left many homeless. Although the four to five million dollar loss was a serious setback, the fire marked the end of the wooden era, and rebuilding with brick began at once. For many years a fire festival was held on June 7 to celebrate the anniversary of the event which resulted in so many civic improvements.

Four years later, March 31, 1897, the Red River, dammed by an ice jam north of Fargo, began rising, and continued until April 7. Conditions became appalling. Residents who had moved from the first floor of their homes were forced to leave for still higher spots via second story windows. Merchants carried their stocks up to top floors and attics, and groceries and the necessities of life were delivered by boat. When the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railroad bridges were in danger of being swept away, locomotives and threshing machines were run out on them to hold them down. The Fargo Forum wrote,

"A. N. Hathaway's family left Island Park by crawling out of the second story windows. Colonel Morton decided that discretion was the better part of valor and retreated ... from his Oak Grove residence Saturday night. Passengers from the east this morning saw three horses and four cows on the roof of one barn."

Later the paper complained editorially when Congress appropriated only $200,000 for flood sufferers in the Mississippi and Red River Valleys, saying, "Fargo before the world begging for a handout.... It wouldn't buy a good dose of quinine for each resident of the inundated district to stave off the chill he's sure to have." When the waters had subsided it was found that 18 blocks of sidewalk and 20 blocks of wooden street paving had floated away. During the flood and the six weeks while the debris was being cleared away and the damage repaired, the Forum was published without interruption. A temporary office was set up with a threshing machine engine furnishing power to operate the presses, and deliveries were made by boat.

The attractions of open farm lands and expanding industries brought thousands of settlers to North Dakota, and by the turn of the century Fargo had a population of 9,589. Important among the industries listed in a 1901 paper were two harness and horse collar factories, one of which issued a 300-page catalogue of its merchandise. One of the larger wholesale houses was Brown's Bicycle House on Broadway at N. P. Avenue.

The city was taking on a metropolitan air. An opera house, seating 1,000, was built in 1893, and belonged to the "Bread Basket Circuit" which included Winnipeg, Grand Forks, Crookston, and Brainerd, with headquarters at Fargo. Fargo was a favorite "stopover" for theater companies, and among the celebrities who thrilled those early audiences were Mrs. Fiske in Becky Sharpe, and Blanche Walsh and Chauncey Olcott in A Run Away Girl. In 1899 an item in the Record, a magazine published in Fargo, remarked, "It is considered quite the thing to drop in at the Coffee House on Broadway ... between one and five p. m. and spend a few moments drinking coffee and chatting, etc." This fad may have been due to the divorce colony which flourished in Fargo then. A 90-day divorce law was in effect, and the city became the temporary abode of many wealthy people who came to establish residence and obtain a separation from their mates. Lawyers, hotels, cafes, and bars did a rushing business.

In the 30 years between 1900 and 1930 Fargo tripled its population. Almost half of its residents are of Norwegian descent. Feeling the effects of an economic depression in their own country in the late nineteenth century, thousands of Norwegians, exhorted by transportation companies and influenced by the glowing tales of their countrymen in the United States, emigrated to North Dakota. Taking advantage of the free lands opened to homesteading, they became some of the first farmers in the upper Red River Valley and helped settle Fargo. Those who made their homes here are today well mingled with the rest of the population and few of their Old World customs are kept alive with the exception of the preparation of Norwegian foods such as lefse, lutefisk, fattigmand, and flad broed. (See Racial Groups and Folkways.) Not forgotten, however, are important national holidays such as May 17, Norwegian Independence Day, which is celebrated with parades and appropriate ceremonies. The Norse influence is further seen in the statues and sculpture of and by noted Norsemen found throughout the city.

POINTS OF INTEREST

1. THE NORTH DAKOTA AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, 13th St. at 12th Ave. N., occupies a level, 100-acre campus in the northwest outskirts of the city. The large tree-enclosed square is cut by graveled driveways curving between rows of hedges, trees, and clumps of shrubbery connecting the irregularly placed, architecturally heterogenous buildings.

Under the Enabling Act of 1889 North Dakota, upon entering statehood, became possessed of a Federal grant of 40,000 acres for an agricultural college. A year later the first State legislature took advantage of the earlier Morrill Land Grant Act, and acquired an additional 90,000 acres of Federal lands. Proceeds from these lands, together with Congressional appropriations, have created an endowment fund that enables the school to offer courses at a minimum tuition fee and to conduct extensive agricultural experiments.

A group of only five students under the supervision of eight instructors gathered October 15, 1890, for the opening classes, held in quarters rented from Fargo College, but before the end of the term the enrollment was 122. Elaborate dedication services for the college were planned in connection with the laying of the cornerstone of the administration building the following spring. After the program had begun it was discovered, to the consternation of the participants, that there was no flag available for the ceremony. A quick-witted student saved the day by contriving a makeshift pennant from a pair of overalls.

From the entrance at 12th Ave. N. and 13th St., a graveled road makes a loop through the campus. Past the Tennis Courts (R) is a Tablet (L) of Norwegian granite, in which is set a medallion of Bjornstjerne Bjornson, Norwegian poet and patriot. Best known as author of the Norwegian national anthem Ja vi elsker dette landet (Yes, I love this land), Bjornson was also a prominent exponent of scientific agriculture. The medallion is the work of Sigvold Asbjornson, Norwegian sculptor.

Administration Building (R), a two-story red brick and sandstone structure, shows architectural influence of the Medieval and Romanesque periods. On the second floor is the Little Country Theater, founded in 1914 as a country-life laboratory by Prof. A. G. Arvold, head of the department of public discussion and social life. With facilities available in the average rural community, students are taught to present entertainments which will provide recreation and education for the communities in which they expect to live.

The Library (L), of Classic design, contains nearly 55,000 volumes, and is a depository for United States Government documents. The Engineering Building (R), including the engineering and architectural departments, is a neoclassic structure of pressed brick with sandstone trim. As the road turns R., Science Hall, a rambling brick structure, is L. It houses the schools of science, literature, and education, and the laboratories of the experimental station where research is conducted in botany and plant pathology. A three-section Greenhouse (L) is maintained in connection with this department.

The Agriculture Building (L), a three-story tile-roofed structure showing influences of Roman and Spanish architecture, houses the school of agriculture, offices of the experimental station, and the extension division.

Right is the Chemistry Building. Frances Hall (L) houses the farm management division and the school of pharmacy. The Dairy Building and the old Barracks are R.

At the next curve of the road are the Farm Buildings of the agriculture division (L and R). Just before reaching 13th St. the road passes the Physical Education Building (L), erected in 1930. It has an indoor track, swimming pool, and auditorium with seating capacity of 3,600. Athletic events featured today at the college with its modern gymnasium and floodlighted football field were impossible during early days at the school, for even if enough students had been enrolled to allow football and basketball teams, there was no athletic coach, and lack of transportation facilities prohibited games with other colleges. In those days one of the chief pastimes of the students was bronco busting, facilities for which were readily available.

Right on 13th St. is the Men's Dormitory (R) and the home economics Practice House (R). The School of Religion (L), of modern design in white stucco, originally conducted as a branch of Wesley College, has been turned over to the agricultural college under a 99-year rent-free lease of its buildings and equipment, together with a charter for conferring degrees in religion.

Right on a campus road is Ceres Hall (R), named for the goddess of grain, and housing the women's dormitory, gymnasium, and the home economics department. Festival Hall (R) is used for R. O. T. C. drill, college entertainments, proms, and informal dances. The Football Field is R. of Festival Hall.

An outstanding organization on the campus is the Gold Star Band which is part of the college R. O. T. C. unit. Directed since 1902 by Dr. C. S. Putnam, it participates in special military events, appears at athletic contests, and has made several tours through North Dakota and Minnesota.

With its campus on the plains of the Red River Valley where great herds of buffalo once roamed, it is appropriate that the school should have the bison as its insignia. The college emblem is a green and yellow shield (the college colors) bearing the letters "N D" surmounted by a bison. The traditional Homecoming banquet held each fall features a bison barbecue.

The college maintains an extension division and experimental stations. The extension service includes the formation of agricultural clubs in rural communities and at the college, and administers Federal funds allotted the State for agricultural education. A primary function of the experimental department is the study of plant diseases and the development of disease-resistant grains. H. L. Bolley, a member of the faculty, discovered the formaldehyde treatment of seed for the prevention of smut on wheat and other grains and perfected a wilt-resistant flax while using these experimental facilities.

2. UNITED STATES VETERANS ADMINISTRATION FACILITY (visiting hours: 2-5 and 7-9 p. m.), 19th Ave. at the NE. edge of the city, is generally referred to as the Veterans' Hospital. Erected in 1929, the three-story brick veneer hospital contains 100 beds, 92 percent of which are filled throughout the year. The grounds cover 50 acres; they are beautifully landscaped, with sunken gardens, ivy arbor, sundial, and Japanese gates. A rock garden was partially financed by the "40-and-8," a veterans' organization.

3. BLACK BUILDING, 114-118 Bdwy., is one of the few buildings in North Dakota of skyscraper proportions. Designed by Lang, Raugland, and Lewis of Minneapolis, with Brasseth and Houkom of Fargo as associates, it is constructed of concrete, steel, and white brick faced with blocks of Indiana limestone with contrasting black spandrels between the windows. Consisting of eight floors and basement, it rises 122 feet above the ground.

AN EARLY SCHOOL
(Oliver County, 1885).

ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, FARGO

THRESHING

Photo by Kermit Overby

SAKAKAWEA, BISMARCK

Radio Station WDAY has its studios on the top floor. The oldest commercial station in North Dakota, it began to function in May 1922, operating on 100 watts. In March 1931 it became an associate member of the National Broadcasting Company, and a number of chain programs, including several from the agricultural college, have originated in its studios.

4. FIRST LUTHERAN CHURCH, 619 Bdwy., is of English Gothic architecture, a modern adaptation of the cathedrals erected in northern Europe in the sixteenth century. It was designed by Magney and Tussler of Minneapolis. The interior appointments are simple and severe, following the traditional arrangement for formal Lutheran services. In an arched sanctuary is the altar of golden Sienna marble. The congregation represents a consolidation of two church groups, the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church founded in Moorhead in 1874 and moved to Fargo four years later, and St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran, organized in Fargo in 1903.

5. FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, cor. 8th St. and 2nd Ave. N., in modified English Gothic style, is of Faribault gray sandstone with slate roof, in cruciform construction. It was designed by Lang, Raugland, and Lewis of Minneapolis, with William F. Kurke of Fargo as associate. The altar was hand-carved by a cousin of Anton Lang, the Christus of the Passion Play at Oberammergau.

The three-manual pipe organ is a gift of Mr. and Mrs. Norman B. Black of Fargo. A stained glass window, designed by Homer L. Huntoon and presented by him in 1932 in memory of his wife and infant son, contains three panels, the central one of which depicts the sacrifice of motherhood, showing a young mother with her baby kneeling before an angel who holds the chalice and host, symbols of redemption. Art and music are represented in the two side panels.

6. UNITED STATES POST OFFICE AND COURTHOUSE, 705 1st Ave. N., erected in 1929-30 at a cost of $600,000, is in Italian Renaissance style, built of reinforced concrete faced with limestone. Ninety tons of steel were used in the first floor, making it strong enough to support 10 stories in addition to its present three.

7. FARGO'S FIRST HOUSE (private), 119 4th St. S., is the home of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Hector. It was built in 1871 of oak logs cut in what is now Island Park, and, although used for two years as a hotel, it was originally intended as the home of A. H. Moore, United States marshall.

8. CASS COUNTY'S FIRST COURTHOUSE, 708 1st Ave. S., has been remodeled into the DeVolne Flats. This two-story gray frame building has had a varied existence. Built in 1874, it served for 11 years as the seat of the county government. It was then moved to the corner of Seventh and Front Streets and used for a Government land office until October 4, 1886, when the construction of a new Northern Pacific depot made it necessary that the building be again moved, this time to Eighth Street. It remained there for a few months, then was sold for $500 and moved to its present location where it became the first club rooms for the Fargo Y. M. C. A.

9. MASONIC GRAND LODGE MUSEUM (open weekdays 9-5), 501 1st Ave. N., houses the Masonic Library, the only lodge library in the State. The museum includes exhibits ranging from Indian artifacts and historical relics to religious articles. Fargo's first sewing machine was donated to the lodge because its owner found it so "noisy to run."

The library specializes in genealogical research for Masonic families. Originally it was part of the museum and contained only copies of rare books. The lodge members became interested in a State-wide program of adult education, and began a lending library of non-fiction books. A collection of 800 rare volumes, a gift to the library of T. S. Parvin, secretary of the Iowa grand lodge, was destroyed in the Fargo fire; the library later bought Mr. Parvin's entire private collection. Important items include Orationes Philelphi printed in 1491; a collection of Bibles dating from the time of King Christian III of Denmark (1503-1559); a copy of the first printed constitution of Freemasonry, dated 1723; and histories of some of the early guides.

10. MONUMENT TO GANGE ROLF, Bdwy. at 5th Ave. N., stands in the Great Northern depot park. Rollo, as Gange Rolf was also known, entered France in 909 with a band of Northmen, and founded Rouen. Two years later he installed himself Duke of Normandy. His line through William the Conqueror became the royal house of England in 1066, and the reigning family of Norway in 1905. The statue, a gift of the Society of Normandy to the Norse people of America, was unveiled in 1912 on the 1001st anniversary of the founding of Normandy.

11. ISLAND PARK, Bdwy. at Red River, Fargo's first park, was donated for a recreational center in 1877 by the Northern Pacific Railway. It was undeveloped until the early 1880's when the city council undertook the task of landscaping. In the attractive grounds are various athletic facilities and a building that serves as a community center.

A granite Monument in a fenced plot near the south driveway was intended for a sundial but was never completed. The oddly phrased religious sentiments on the sides are by O. W. Lien of Breckenridge, Minn., donor of the shaft, who said they were dictated to him by a voice.

Near the west drive is a bronze Monument to Henrik Wergeland, a Norwegian poet noted for his efforts in opening the doors of Norway to the Jews and the naming of May 17 as Norwegian Independence Day. The monument is a gift of the Norwegian people to North Dakota and was presented during the Wergeland centenary in 1908.

12. OAK GROVE PARK (tennis courts, horseshoe courts, playground apparatus, soft-ball diamonds, wading pool, picnic facilities), on the Red River, has entrances at the E. end of 6th and 7th Aves. N., known as South and North Terrace. So sharp are the curves of the river that at one point one can look from North Dakota west into Minnesota. Oak Grove covers 39 acres.

13. EL ZAGAL PARK (private), 1411 Bdwy., is the property of the El Zagal Shrine Club. On the nine-hole golf course is the El Zagal Bowl, a natural amphitheater, used during the summer months for concerts and dramatic presentations. Programs each year include recitals by the Amphion Male Chorus of Fargo and Moorhead. North from the park are North Drive, which follows the Red River, and Memorial Drive, leading to Edgewood Park.

14. DOVRE SKI SLIDE, 1½ m. N. of 19th Ave. on N. Bdwy., when completed in 1935, was the highest artificial ski scaffold in the United States. At its highest point it is 140 feet from the ground. Reaching their maximum speed at the end of the runway, 300 feet from the top of the slide, skiers land on a hillside leading to the Red River, and complete their slide in Minnesota.

15. GOOD SAMARITAN SCHOOL FOR CRIPPLED CHILDREN, 716 7th St. S., stands on the site of a log cabin, the birthplace on August 27, 1871, of Anna Thoresen, later Mrs. Anna Roe, first white girl born in Fargo and Cass County. The school is housed in the buildings once occupied by the first college in the city, Fargo College, founded in 1887 as a Congregational school. The campus and main building had a beautiful setting overlooking Island Park. A shrinking income closed the school in 1919. In 1933, sponsored by the Good Samaritan Society, it became a school for crippled children, a private organization dependent upon donations from churches, fraternal societies, and other sources. It operates as a boarding school, with vocational training and academic courses from the first grade through high school.

16. On the SITE OF THE HEADQUARTERS HOTEL, between Bdwy. and 7th St. S., N. of the Northern Pacific Railway, stood a large two-story frame building which was the railroad station, hotel, and social center of Fargo during its early days. Built by the Northern Pacific in 1872, the hotel was formally opened April 1 the following year. After a disastrous fire in 1874 it was rebuilt by Fargo business men at a cost of $45,000. The new three-story combined hotel and depot was a prominent landmark, visible for many miles on the flat prairie. Around it flowed the life and business of the little frontier settlement and through it filed the men and women who helped make the history of the West. Its register carried the names of such notables as President U. S. Grant and Gen. William T. Sherman. Gen. George A. Custer and Gen. Nelson A. Miles often stayed there on their way to and from the frontier. A menu preserved from the hotel's Christmas dinner in 1887 lists the following game dishes: "wild turkey, stuffed chestnut dressing; possum with browned sweet potatoes; partridge with English bread sauce; baked squirrel; saddle of venison, currant jelly; young black bear; antelope, game sauce; buffalo steak; reed birds a la provencale; broiled quail on toast"—and any of these for 50 cents. One of the few buildings to escape the fire of 1893, the hotel burned in 1899.

17. ST. MARY'S CATHEDRAL, Bdwy. at 6th Ave. N., seat of the diocese of Fargo since 1891, is a red brick structure showing influences of Classic and Gothic style. A prominent feature is a 190-foot bell tower and steeple topped with a bronze cross. On the northeast corner of the building a small tower forms a niche and canopy for a heroic size statue of the Virgin Mary. In bas-relief on either side of the east window over the entrance portals are figures of SS. Peter and Paul. The cathedral, completed in 1899, was dedicated by Bishop John Shanley, first Roman Catholic Bishop of North Dakota.

POINTS OF INTEREST IN ENVIRONS

Armour Packing Plant and Union Stockyards, West Fargo, 5 m. (see Tour 8). Wild Rice River, 7 m.; Holy Cross Cemetery, 8 m. (see Tour 1).