The 20th Century In Review - Getting power to the people

Litten was born in Kansas City, the son of blacksmith Charles Litten. His family moved to Bismarck, N.D., when he was an infant and to Fargo in 1917 when he was 3, because his mother, Kathleen, wanted her children to attend college.

He attended Horace Mann Elementary School, Roosevelt Junior High and then Fargo Central High. The family was poor. Although Litten would have rather played Legion ball, he worked at Morgan's grocery store for 25 cents an hour.

"I didn't have the opportunity to participate in a lot of activities," Litten said.

A Central High teacher, Mary Fowler, encouraged him to pursue extracurricular activities in college. While attending NDSU Litten was business manager for the yearbook, president of Blue Key and president of his fraternity.

He went to work for Northwestern Bell in 1936 for $70 a week.

The military called in 1942. Litten, an officer, served as an infantry instructor before going overseas to the European theater.

Litten went back to work for the telephone company when he returned in 1946. He wasn't back in town long before two doctors from the Fargo (now MeritCare) Clinic presented an offer.

"They said, 'Would you be willing to represent the clinic for the community?'" Litten said.

Litten became the clinic's business manager, and with the support of the doctors, immediately became involved in community affairs.

Litten said community leaders, including those in utilities and banking, encouraged returning soldiers.

"There was a lot of enthusiasm among those of us coming back from the service," Litten said. "We wanted to get involved and the guys carrying the ball during the war were willing to let us get involved. They gave us almost free rein in planning."

During and immediately following WWII, Litten said, little progress was being made in Fargo. "People were just going along and doing the best they could," he said.

Litten said the tide turned in 1946 when Charles Dawson became Fargo's mayor.

"Volunteerism was the order of the day," Litten said.

Litten and other young leaders in the 1950s organized Citizens for Community Planning, and set out to achieve All-America City status for Fargo.

Litten said it may seem corny now, but city leaders took to wearing buttons which read: "Make no little plans."

"We took that to heart. We didn't make any modest plans," Litten said.

Fargo was named an All-America City in 1959 and 1960. "We were mighty, mighty proud of that at the time," Litten said.

Warner in 1959 was general chairman of an effort to raise $1 million for a new YMCA and YWCA facility. With 1,000 volunteers involved, the campaign raised $1.2 million.

Support was also built for passage of a bond issue to build Fargo's Civic Memorial Auditorium and Fargo City Hall. Citizens also supported a $1.9 million bond issue for school construction and worked to secure $3 million for flood protection.

It was in these years, Litten said, that Fargo achieved a status among population centers such as Sioux Falls, S.D., and Billings, Mont.

"At the time (of the war) we were just another town," Litten said. "Today we are a city."

At one point the young leaders projected Fargo as a city of 100,000 by 2000. Litten concedes that goal may not be reached, but he said they didn't anticipate that Cass and Clay counties would be as populated as they are today.

He said much of the growth is due to the cooperation between Fargo and Moorhead officials.

"It's not just Fargo," Litten said. "The secret of Fargo right now is Fargo-Moorhead."

Fargo-Moorhead today is a center of banking, retail trade, medicine and education.

"The very fact that we're an educational center is a real boost," Litten said. "The region is the very thing that is going to take us into the future. We have a lot of attributes that great cities have. We're going to become a great metropolitan area."

Dick Walstad of Cook Sign Co. attended two meetings with Litten this week. "This man is just a giant in Fargo," Walstad said. "When Warner Litten runs a meeting, you have to stay alert. He gets everybody involved. He's a master."

Walstad turned to Litten 10 years ago to temporarily serve as president of the Fargo-Cass County Economic Development Corp.

"Everything you see today, in the creation of jobs, started with C. Warner Litten taking that job and reinventing economic development in Fargo," Walstad said. "This guy has left an indelible mark on a lot of things in this town, from the airport to the Fargodome."

In the coming months, as part of Project Tomorrow, Litten will be active in planning the city of Fargo's 125th anniversary - 25 years after he planned the city city's centennial.

"I've been privileged to really be in the mainstream of a lot of organizations in this town," Litten said. "I've always thought that I never retired. I just changed directions."