7/16/2008:
Today Minot is the largest city in Ward County, and the fourth largest in the State. It is home to an Air Force Base, the internationally renowned Norsk Høstfest and the State Fair. However, in the early 1880s, the ‘Magic City’s’ influential position in the region was quite uncertain. Before Minot’s creation the town of Burlington, a few miles upstream, had already established itself as the region’s center, and the county seat. When rumors spread of the extension of James J. Hill’s rail line from Devils Lake into Montana, Joseph Colton and James Johnson, two entrepreneurs from Burlington, bet that Hill would have to go through the city in order to quickly build through the region. Unfortunately for the two men, Hill was not interested in dealing with land speculators and instead chose to cut through the Mouse River Valley some miles to the west, right through the farm of a poor Norwegian farmer, Eric Ramstad.
While working in his southern hayfield one bright summer’s day in 1886, Erik Ramstad was approached by two men from J.J. Hill’s Minneapolis, St. Paul and Manitoba railway. Solomon G. Comstock and A.A. White informed Mr. Ramstad that Hill was interested in purchasing his land for a new terminal for the Manitoba line. For the hefty price of $1,000 Ramstad agreed to sell 40 acres of his 160 acre claim.
Although Hill had purchased sections of Ramstad’s farm in order to build a new rail terminal, the success of a future city was not secured. The many other struggling towns on the Dakota prairies could testify that a railroad was no guarantee of future success. What gave Minot an advantage, however, was that it served as the winter terminal and base camp for Hill’s railroad construction efforts during the winter of 1886 and spring of 1887. In anticipation of the summer construction season, some four thousand people crowded into Ramstad’s former hayfield by April of 1887, with hundreds more arriving daily by train. This influx of people attracted a large number of business owners who hoped to make a quick profit off the construction workers. Although a fair number of these new businesses were saloons, the large construction projects gave Minot a more permanent feel than many of the other Dakota boom towns, and contributed to even further growth.
Even though it was home to thousands, Minot had not yet incorporated. As a result it had no regulations to enforce building codes. On May 9, 1887 disaster struck. A fire swept through the haphazardly constructed city. Had there been any sort of a wind, the whole town probably would have been destroyed. In response to the fire, business leaders felt that proper zoning and building codes needed to be put in place in order to prevent another devastating fire. The quickest way to create those zoning codes was through city law, and on this date, July 16, 1887, Minot voted to incorporate into a proper city.
Written by Lane Sunwall
SourcesFox, Teresa M., and Dr. Eric Clausen, eds. Reflections from a Distant Mirror: Minot State University and Its Regions. Minot, ND: Midcontinent Institute, 1994.
Johnson, Loretta, Cleo Cantlon, and Randi Asmundson, eds. Minot: A Book of Days. Minot, ND: Minot Daily News, 1999.
Keillor, Steven. Erik Ramstad and the Empire Builder. Minot, ND: North American Heritage Press, 2002.
Stammen, John M., and Barbara VanderMei, eds. Ward County: Jim Hill to Jets. Minot, ND, 1961.