8/10/2011:
Nobody likes to think about their garbage. But the fact is, each year Americans throw away enough paper and plastic cups, forks, and spoons to circle the equator 300 times. So, there are a lot of stories, many of them untold, about land once part of a vast wilderness that now serves instead as a place for our junk. And eventually, these landfills get full and we start over. So goes the story of the original Fargo Dump. If you’re ever driving around North Fargo, keep in mind that parts of it used to be stacked high with the garbage of pioneers and flappers alike, until clever engineers and street workers found a way to make room for the next generation’s trash.
The original city dump, containing nearly 40 years of accumulated garbage, stood house-high in an area covering almost two city blocks in North Fargo. But after it was abandoned in 1929, it was left to sit, changing from organic matter into a residue of rust, glass, and ashes. So, engineers used it in a way that probably wouldn’t be allowed today: as street bedding. A large stretch of First Avenue North between Eighteenth and Twenty-seventh Streets is footed on material from the original dump, as are many other parts of town. In fact, street workers soon became dependent on the garbage. On this date in 1949, the Fargo Forum was asking questions and even reminiscing about the old dump, while wondering what the city was going to do when it ran out of the valuable material the dump provided. And as the last of the trash was finally cleared away, the area of North Fargo that used to be the dump was declared available for building. Of course since then, North Dakota’s waste regulations have evolved, and Fargo has operated landfills with stricter rules.
But before all of this, in the times of the frontier, the area where the dump would be located was a rendezvous for duck hunters, along with a swimming, rowing, and sailing area. The settlers then had no idea their community would soon be creating massive amounts of waste – waste that would later help “pave” the way to progress.
Dakota Datebook written by Leewana Thomas
http://www.cleanair.org/Waste/wasteFacts.html#_edn1
The Fargo Forum August 10, 1949
Conversation with Terry Ludlum, solid waste utility manager for the City of Fargo