Gateway to the northern plains
Subtitle: railroads and the birth of Fargo and Moorhead
By: Carroll Engelhardt.
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Minneapolis
Language: eng
Number of pages: 366
ISBN-13: 9780816649563; 9780816649570
Subjects: Northern Pacific Railway Company -- History; Great Northern Railway Company (U.S.) -- History; Fargo (N.D.) -- History -- 19th century; Moorhead (Minn.) -- History -- 19th century; Fargo (N.D.) -- Economic conditions -- 19th century; Moorhead (Minn.) -- Economic conditions -- 19th century
Description: "In the 1860s, land speculators in Minnesota and the Dakota Territory expected that a great city would rise where the railroad crossed the Red River of the North. In 1872, after the Northern Pacific Railroad laid its first tracks across the river, it brought settlers, capital, and access to Eastern markets and gave birth to the twin cities of Moorhead and Fargo."

"Historian Carroll Engelhardt's Gateway to the Northern Plains chronicles the story of Fargo and Moorhead's growth. Once just specks on the vast landscape of the Northern Plains, these twin cities prospered, teeming with their own dynamic culture, economy, and politics. Moorhead developed first, boosted by railroad manager Thomas Hawley Canfield, who touted it as superior to Fargo. However, Northern Pacific Railway chose Fargo as its headquarters, and it became the "Gateway City" to North Dakota."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: At the crossing : the incorporation of Fargo and Moorhead; title: Booster dreams : Henry Bruns and Moorhead's collapse; title: Boomtown on the prairie : Fargo becomes a gateway city; title: Old and new Americans : the people of Fargo and Moorhead; title: Domestic virtues : middle-class moral order; title: Vagabonds, workers, and purveyors of vice; title: Building a better community : the politics of good government.