Right from Hillsboro on a graveled highway to STONY POINT, 1.5 m., site of a camp used by pioneers freighting their supplies overland from Fargo during early settlement of the region. The camp site, situated on a sandy ridge left by the recession of glacial Lake Agassiz, is marked by a large, pointed boulder 20 ft. in diameter, which once served as a landmark. In early days it was believed, from the manner in which the rock was situated in the earth, that it might have dropped from the sky.
South of Hillsboro are many well-built farmsteads—some of which were once part of bonanza farms—and four peaceful villages which in bonanza days were busy wheat centers, but now lie quietly basking in their memories.
GRANDIN, 146 m. (898 alt., 172 pop.), is the largest of these towns. It was named for J. L. Grandin, one of the two Tidioute, Pa., brothers who bought 99 sections of Red River Valley land and farmed them under the bonanza system. Dividing their land into 1,500-acre farms, each with a superintendent and a foreman, they harvested their first crop in 1878. They had 14,000 acres under cultivation near Grandin, and 6,000 at Mayville. Before the advent of the railroad the wheat raised on their land was hauled on barges towed by the steamers Grandin and Alsop to Fargo, a distance of 90 m.—overland Grandin is 35 m. from Fargo. The Grandin farm was one of the earliest practical users of the telephone, although whether the first in the State was installed on this or the Dalrymple farm (see Tour 8) is in dispute.
GARDNER, 154.5 m. (891 alt., 108 pop.), named for the town site owner, was founded in 1880 when the surrounding territory was being developed as wheat country, but was not incorporated village until 1929.
ARGUSVILLE, 161.5 m. (889 alt., 115 pop.), is believed to have received its name from the Daily Argus, Fargo newspaper published at the time of the town's founding in 1880.
HARWOOD, 169 m. (892 alt., 82 pop.), was named for A. J. Harwood, a prominent Fargo real estate dealer who bought all the town sites between Fargo and Grand Forks when the G. N. Ry. was built.
At 179.3 m. is the junction with a graveled road.
Right on this road to HECTOR AIRPORT, 0.5 m., a U. S. Department of Commerce A-1 field, land for which was donated by Martin Hector, pioneer Fargo banker, in 1931. The buildings include a city hangar of laminated truss-arch construction, completed in 1936 under the Works Progress Administration.
FARGO, 181 m. (907 alt., 28,619 pop.) (see Fargo).
Points of Interest: North Dakota Agricultural College, Veterans' Hospital, Dovre Ski Slide.