Streetcars provided a convenient mode of transportation for downtown Fargo workers. These
two streetcars are seen at the corner of present-day Main Avenue and Broadway. Fargo's
streetcars stopped running in 1937. Special the the Forum/Courtesy of Wimmer's
Railroads carved path to prosperity
Transportation revolution follows as folks demand speedier modes of travel
By Sarah Coomber
The Forum
Imagine standing in Moorhead at the corner of Main Avenue and Fourth
Street, by Kirby’s and Ralph’s Corner bars, Pizza Patrol and the Shoe Revue.
But those businesses are years from opening: The year is 1905.
First Avenue South, as Main Avenue was called, is paved with round cedar blocks laid over
fir planks. Elegant streetcars, drawing their power from suspended copper cables, rumble
past.
Bicycles are the rage, sharing the roads with horses and a few early automobiles.
Railroads, which supplanted oxcarts, stagecoaches and steamships for long-distance
hauling, run through town, carrying settlers and their household belongings, and
agricultural products.
Local historians and transportation experts agree that transportation has been - and
remains - key to Fargo-Moorhead’s development.
"There was no Fargo and Moorhead until the railroads arrived," said Mark Peihl,
archivist at the Clay County Historical Society. In fact, there were few European settlers
before the railroads, save a handful of Norwegian subsistence farmers.
In 1870, one year before the Northern Pacific railroad brought east-west rail traffic to
Moorhead, Clay County was home to 90 people. By 1875, that number had grown to 1,500. The
railroads continued bringing supplies and settlers, and by 1885, the county was booming
with 15,000 people.
By 1890, rails had been laid locally for the Northern Pacific, Great Northern and Chicago
Milwaukee & St. Paul railroads. Other branch lines snaked through the region.
The railroads drew the attention of many settlers and investors. According to the late
Larry Remele, who was editor of North Dakota History magazine, the best-known promotion
involved bonanza farms - huge agricultural operations that became world-famous for their
productivity.
Railroads formed subsidiaries to market land and locate towns, so they were ready when
settlers arrived. People rushed to get their hands on land provided by the Homestead Act
and to purchase railroad land.
Before the iron horse
The first steamboat plied the Red River in 1859, and so began increased trading with Fort
Garry - now Winnipeg, Man. The Hudson’s Bay Fur Trading Co. established a terminal at
Georgetown, Minn., where traders transferred furs and other merchandise between boats and
oxcarts, called Red River carts. The carts transported goods between St. Paul and
Georgetown.
The cedar blocks used to pave the streets in the early 20th century are visible in this
1923 photograph taken looking north on 5th Street from present-day Main Avenue. Clay
County Historical Society
Once the east-west-linking Northern Pacific railroad reached the Red River at Moorhead,
trade with Winnipeg increased dramatically. Canada-bound settlers made their way west by
rail to Fargo-Moorhead and then north by steamboat.
But by 1878, Winnipeg had its own rail connections, and steamboats began losing customers.
The last steamboat left this part of the Red River in 1886.
River crossings
In 1872, the Northern Pacific railroad bridge was completed and brought the first train to
Fargo. Before long, area residents built temporary bridges to the north - and rebuilt them
after every flood.
The first wagon bridges were constructed between Fargo and Moorhead around 1884. Much like
today, acrimonious debates erupted over where to place them, Peihl said. Back then the
question was whether to place a bridge north or south of downtown. The people reached a
compromise: The cities built two low-quality bridges, one at Main Avenue and one from
Northern Pacific Avenue to Second Avenue North.
The latter bridge remained standing until 1942 when it was torn down so its materials
could be used in the war effort. A footing remains visible in the river just south of the
American Crystal Sugar building.
The federal Works Progress Administration spearheaded building the present-day Main Avenue
and Center Avenue bridges in the 1930s.
In-town rails
In 1904, the Fargo and Moorhead Street Railway Co. laid track around town and began
offering electric rail service. It ran from 7 a.m. to midnight, and Peihl describes it as
"phenomenally popular." According to the Fargo Forum, 10,000 people rode the
streetcars the first day.
1859: The Red River carried its first steamboat.
1870: Clay County was home to 90 people.
1871: The Northern Pacific railroad reached the Red River at Moorhead.
1875: Clay County was home to 1,500 people.
1882: Fargo-Moorhead’s first streetcar system - with horsedrawn cars - debuted, and quickly failed.
1880s: Bicycles appeared on the scene.
1884: The Fargo and Southern Depot was built.
1884: The first wagon bridges were built between Fargo and Moorhead.
1885: Clay County was home to 15,000 people.
1886: Steamboats quit serving Fargo-Moorhead. (They continued operating near Grand Forks until about 1910.)
1890s: Bicycle clubs emerged.
1898: The Northern Pacific Depot was built.
Around 1900: The Great Northern Depot was built.
1904: Fargo and Moorhead Street Railway Co. began offering electric streetcar service.
Late 1910s: Automobiles dominate streets.
1920s: The trucking industry got its start.
1927: Charles Lindbergh flew to Fargo in the Spirit of St. Louis.
1930: There is one motor vehicle for every four North Dakotans.
Early 1930s: Long-distance buses and taxis were introduced.
1930s: The Works Progress Administration built bridges at Main and Center avenues.
1937: The last streetcar ran.
Late 1940s: In North Dakota, 20 percent of state highways were paved.
1956: Federal highway aid act led to interstate highway construction.
1960: In North Dakota, 80 percent of highways were paved.
1977: The interstate highway system was completed in North Dakota.
1998: Nearly 200,000 passengers flew out of Hector International Airport.
1999: About 4,000 miles of railroad remain in North Dakota. The state has 66,000 trucks involved in commerce.
Crews sought high point to establish key crossing
Editor’s note: Taken from "Fargo Founded. Thomas H. Canfield’s Story Entertainingly and Tersely Told."
… It was generally conceded that whenever the Northern Pacific railroad should cross the Red river of the North there would arise the next great city west of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and the live men of which there were not a few, were on the quivive to ascertain in advance if possible where that crossing would be, and all sorts of subterfuges were adopted to find out from parties connected with the Northern Pacific railroad where that point would be long before the directors themselves knew, and as it fell to my lot to be the pioneer director who had to precede the engineers and explore the country, my plans were closely watched and my travels shadowed by numerous parties, when your townsmen, Jacob Lowell and H.S. Back can tell you more about them than I ever knew myself. …
Early in the spring of 1871 George B. Wright, of Minneapolis, who was in the employ of the Northern Pacific railroad, and who had been the government surveyor of the lands in northwestern Minnesota, and myself came from St. Cloud by team to McCaulyville, and thence up on the east bank of the Red river, as the west bank was an Indian territory, and we were not allowed there, as far as Georgetown, then a post of the Hudson Bay company, to find where the best point would be for the railroad to cross the river. There was a tradition among the Indians, which was corroborated by the employees of the Hudson Bay company, that in the spring of the year, the Red river overflowed its banks, and that the whole valley became a sea, and hence it was necessary not only to find the highest point of land to cross, but that the railroad would have to be built on piles or high embankments as far west as the Sheyenne river, which was done originally. After some days spent by Mr. Wright and myself going up and down the river, we decided that Moorhead was the highest point as far as we could determine without instruments. Meanwhile Mr. Linsley, the engineer of the company, was coming from the junction near east Audubon examining the country and him we met at the farm, now owned by Mr. Evans at Muskoda, to compare notes. This we had to do hastily, as each had expected to find the other with provisions, which when we met we found to our disgust neither had, and went with the thermometer 92 degrees in the shade in May, we had each to retrace our steps as fast as possible, he to his camp near Detroit and myself and Mr. Wright towards Georgetown, giving us but a short time to compare notes, but enough, however, to determine a few miles south of the 44th parallel of latitude would be the crossing point, now Moorhead. …
(From the December 1895 issue of The Record, a monthly history magazine published in the 1890s in Bismarck.)
