Eden around Wahpeton and Fargo, North Dakota - Fargo ND Off the Beaten Path

Preview: Fargo, North Dakota’s largest city with 90,599 people, has profited immensely from the rich soil in the Red River Valley, where wheat, sugar beets, and sunflowers dapple the landscape. More than a century ago, this land was called Eden, and that appellation still works today. Fargo has been a vital trade and distribution center for the wheat and livestock produced in the surrounding region. Settlers, enticed by the promise of prosperity in the Great West, forded the river in carts. Farm products and by-products keep many factories bustling, and legalized casino gambling has made Fargo a regional tourism center. (Fargo’s cousin city, Moorhead, is located just across the state line in Minnesota.) Fargo was established in 1871 at the point where the Northern Pacific Railway crossed the Red River. Its first name was Centralia, but the town later was renamed to honor William George Fargo, who was founder of Wells, Fargo and Co. and one of the railroad’s directors. Low railroad freight rates and the land’s incredible wheat-producing potential attracted settlers. Fargo wears its heritage like a badge of honor. The city has all the accoutrements of culture and higher education in an ambience of small-town hospitality. It gives an earnest tip of the hat to the past with such events as the Red River Valley Fair and Pioneer Days. Parades, arts and crafts, and people in period costume set the tone for Pioneer Days, held during the third weekend in August. Bonanzaville, USA is the backdrop for this event. Bonanzaville is a restored pioneer village from the early twentieth century, and it proudly touts itself as “fifteen acres of valley heritage.” More than forty-five buildings are featured, including a train depot, farm machinery buildings, general stores, the Plains Indian Museum, and log cabins. The large and well-capitalized Bonanza farms (not to be confused with the ranch of 1960s TV fame) were built by early railroad boosters here and then marketed, to attract settlers, as a slice of Eden in the West. Sure enough, settlers followed with their plows and dreams. Between 1879 and 1886 about 100,000 people, many of them Scandinavian and German, came to live in Dakota Territory. This period became known as the Dakota Boom. Several of the Bonanza farms endured to the early part of the twentieth century—the last threads in the fabric of a powerful era in agriculture. The Bonanza episode is one of the most colorful in this part of the state’s history. The above description is an excerpt from "The Dakotas: Off the Beaten Path." Whether you're a visitor or a local looking for something different, this chapter from the Off the Beaten Path series will help you take the "road less traveled" and discover hidden attractions, unique finds, and unusual locales that most tourists miss.
© Copyright Robin McMacken published by Insiders' Guide all rights reserved.


This travel guide comes from:
The Dakotas Off the Beaten Path Guide Book