Grand Forks at 150: The First Fifty

2024 marks the 150th anniversary of white settlers platting the city of Grand Forks, North Dakota which in 1874 opened the townsite of Grand Forks to legal settlement. While the city of Grand Forks wasn’t officially incorporated until 7 years later, 2024 nevertheless begins a period of reflection on the history, the present, and the future of the city. As part of this effort to think about the legacy of the founding of Grand Forks, the University of North Dakota Department of History and American Indian Studies collaborated with the Grand Forks Historic Preservation Commission to produce a series of short essays on the history of the city. Each essay is, appropriately, 150 words and we present here the first group of 50 essays written by UND students, faculty, and community members. Over the next few years, we plan to continue release 100 more of these short essays for a total of 150! The goal of this project is to represent a plurality of voices and perspectives on the history of Grand Forks. In the fifty essays presented here, authors reflect on events as recent as mid-century school buildings and the Valley School referendum and as distant as the founders of the city, the first women jurors, and roads built over in the 1920s leaving behind only phantom sidewalks. Right now, we are offering only a small sample to kick off this project, to whet your appetite for more, and hopefully to encourage as many different voices to contribute essays to this collection as it grows. We are certain that the final product will be a landmark that reflects on Grand Forks’ past, captures the perspectives of the present, and offers a foundation for new futures.