Space and distance surround a person as in no other place. This was the country, swept by wind and frozen in winter blizzards, that the Northern Pacific Railroad and its agents tried to populate from the 1880s. It was some of the last open land in the United States to be settled, and boosters lured immigrants and easterners with exaggerated prose. An 1883 newspaper account claimed a future of powerful cities. The lure of Dakota remained, nevertheless, fitful.
West River is one of the towns along the railroad line that took hold.
By the early part of the century, it was a largely German-speaking community and overwhelmingly Catholic. I spent time with last summer, had no illusions about the past, however. They were willing to settle on the poorest land because they just figured that they could make it. In counterpoint to the boosterism that began the century, the refrain at century's end is one of decline. Counties and towns began watching their numbers shrink two and more decades ago.