Fargo Forum

The want ads have been a staple in newspapers for generations. The simple premise of posting sale items or help-wanted ads has continued in virtually every community. Today, those ads from the past provide a glimpse into the services, wages, and community, of the decades gone by. Here’s a sampling of Fargo Forum newspaper ads from this week in 1909:

During the Red River Valley’s hot and humid days of mid-August 1944, the newspaper in Fargo reported on a health scare.  A 17 year old boy had just died of polio, infantile paralysis, in a Fargo hospital. He had been hospitalized for less than a week. 

Newspaper readers in the early 1940s were accustomed to their daily newspaper coverage of war battles and international conflict. World War II affected virtually every aspect of human life. The Fargo Forum was no exception.

On this day in 2000, John Lohman retired from his 48 year long career at the Fargo Forum. Mr. Lohman was born in 1935 in Bismarck, but grew up in Fargo and graduated from NDSU with a degree in engineering. In 1947 he became a newspaper carrier for the Fargo Forum. In 1948, while working on his carrier job, he reported election returns for the Dewey-Truman presidential race to the newsroom. His service for the Fargo Forum would prove to be invaluable.