Category

George Nichols was born in Brattleboro, Vermont in 1856. He moved to Marshal, Minnesota to work in a hotel, where he stayed until he moved to Fargo in 1878 and became a clerk at the Headquarters Hotel. Working behind the desk, he became popular with the people of Fargo and did his best to talk to every man who wandered into the hotel. After many years of working at the hotel, in 1885 he took the County Deputy Treasur

  Peter Elliott was a man who moved to Fargo in April 1893. Before he moved, he worked on a steamboat sailing up and down the Red River, to and from Winnipeg. After his time working on the steamboat, he spent two years working as a surveyor for the United States surveyors. When he relocated to Fargo, he opened a restaurant in the basement of Martin Hector’s building on the corner of Front and Fifth. His re

Mary Dodge Woodward is a woman who lived and worked on a bonanza farm in Cass County from 1884-1888. Bonanza farms cropped up largely in the Dakota territory after the Northern Pacific Railroad sold huge acreages of land to their investors for extremely low prices to cover their debts. These farms covered thousands of acres and produced a large number of wheat crops. The land owners hired managers to run the farms, a

The James Holes house is one of the oldest buildings in Fargo to be standing in its original location. Built in 1879, the home attracted considerable attention due to its size and quality of construction. At the time it was built, the house was approximately one mile north of town.  The 1880 City Directory lists the address as “Broadway. North of city limits.” It was surrounded by a healthy wheat field, dotted with b

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

The morning of June 7th did not presage any great change, save for a sultry wind blowing thirty miles per hour and a temperature that was to reach 88 degrees. At 2:15 on June 7th, the “fire laddies” were called to deal with a fire that seemed to have started behind Herzman’s Dry Goods store on 512 Front Street. The beginnings of the fire proved to be somewhat controversial. As a young man, John Hannaher was to bear w

At the heart of nearly any fledgling prairie town of the latter decades of the nineteenth century in the United States lays an arterial business and commercial sector regardless of size or scope.  Without reliable establishments that provide basic services to meet the needs of an early population, growth becomes hamstrung and a town’s future uncertain. Business and commercial enterprises not only dictate the ebb and

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

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

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