logo

Category

Built Environment

Fargo’s Opera House in the Fargo Fire

The first opera house of Fargo received little respect in its early years for either presentation or design. In November of 1890, Alex Stern and Harry O’Neill offered to build a new opera house for Fargo if the city would provide aid.[1] Stern repeated this offer as late as February of 1892, still hoping to provide a new opera house for the growing city.[2] A theater manager from Minneapolis, Charles A. Parker, ackno
Read More

Proving Up: Three Decades of Trial and Triumph

By the turn of the twentieth century, Fargo’s commercial business structures signaled a meaningful transition from the early structures. While the settlers were concerned with the immediate and practical applications, the growing city began to reflect a higher culture and advancing lifestyle on the Northern Plains. Simple utilitarian structures  gave way to the buildings that served thriving businesses at the heart o
Read More

Icon of Progress on the Plains

The Cass County Courthouse, a far cry from the first courthouse building in 1877, exemplified the determination of the citizens of Fargo and the vast progress they made in less than two decades in often-harsh Northern Plains environment. Against many odds, buildings like the renovated courthouse provide additional testaments to the peoples’ determination and successful transformation of a vast prairie into a sovereig
Read More

Resilience and Rebound: Virtues of Building in Brick

Wood continued to provide the framework for more and more business buildings in downtown Fargo and it was not without its merits for other building or business endeavors. However, a majority of the post-fire structures shifted toward predominantly brick or stone constructions.  At the same time, technological advances allowed for increased sophistication and more architecturally sound developments for new commercial
Read More

Rebuilding a City: A New Approach

As the ruins of the city smoldered and with distinguishing resolve, Alexander Stern, along with others, hauled lumber onto the scorched earth and began rebuilding immediately to get the businesses up and running with minimal delay.  Within the succeeding year, Stern’s group managed to reestablish 246 buildings at the cost of $968,000 and encourage ongoing reconstruction throughout the devastated districts.  In fact,
Read More

Loss and Devastation in Fargo’s Business District

Wood construction and row developments proved accessible and resourceful for getting Fargo’s business community off the ground, but by the end of the day on June 7, 1893, fire consumed the buildings and businesses on about  160 acres in the center of the city’s thriving  prairie metropolis. As various policy holders claimed $1.7 million from insurance, the net loss on the property insured was $435,000 thousand  and t
Read More

Flooding, Sewage Management, and Early Plumbing

In the first decade of Fargo’s settlement,  concerns for sanitation and waste management quickly rose to the forefront of city operations. As an infrastructure  developed, the need for  a sewage system for Fargo was clear and the city council investigated the system and its cost.  On  January 13, 1881, council members solicited city engineers for a sewage system that best met the needs of the flat city. On Sept
Read More

Nineteenth-Century Telephone Services and Water Supplies

In an effort to expand the prospects of Fargo’s increasing community, Fargo City Council Members gave H.C. Shoen, E.C. Eddy, and others the city’s first telephone franchise on January 7, 1880.  A year later, Fargo and Moorhead Telephone Exchange began erecting poles for doing general phone business.  Twenty years later, Northwestern Telephone Exchange Company fitted the city with metallic circuit long distance transm
Read More

Early Public Street Lights

After Mayor George Egbert authorized a $44 payment to Cass Lamp Works on December 5, 1879, the first kerosene lamps soon appeared on the streets of Fargo. Police officers were authorized to ensure the street lamps were in proper working order and purchased barrels of oil so the night police units could fill and light the lamps and extinguish them in the morning.[1] By October 7, 1881, the Gas Light and Fuel Company b
Read More

The Arrival of Row Housing

Row construction allowed for quick and efficient “business-raising” where new enterprises could be in operation seemingly overnight and able to accommodate nearly any kind of commercial business imaginable. With easy and convenient access, the arrival of business set an elevated standard operating procedure for additional expansion and inclusion of new business and industry. -Stacy M. Reikowsky, Digital History 2012
Read More