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).