In the 1870s, the Northern Pacific (NP) Railway was rapidly advancing across Dakota Territory with tracks running from the present site of Fargo westward to the James River. Along this track, about thirty miles east of the James River,...
The buildings and landscapes of northeastern North Dakota were shaped by early commerce that included fur trade with the Selkirk settlement and Hudson’s Bay Company outposts and steamboat traffic on the Red...
Early French explorers and fur traders described the site where the Red Lake River drains into the meandering Red River of the North as “Les Grande Fourches.” The city of Grand Forks formed at that confluence. As a productive hunting and trading area...
Located at the confluence of the Red and the Pembina rivers, the site of the city of Pembina became the first European settlement in the state when two Canadian traders, Alexander Henry Jr. and Norman W. Kittson, wintered here in 1812. By 1840, the site...
Shaping of buildings and landscapes of north central North Dakota began with the early explorations of the sieur de La Vérendrye (also known as Pierre Gaultier de Varennes) for the Montreal-based...
Carrington was founded in 1882 to accommodate arrival of the Northern Pacific (NP) Railway. From 1910 to 1930 the town was known as a destination for automobile tourism, particularly for the elaborately landscaped Rainbow Gardens Tourist...
The northwestern region of North Dakota is historically important for Lewis and Clark’s expeditionary encounters (1804–1806) with Mandan and Hidatsa people. Near today’s community of Washburn, they were...
Riverdale began in 1948 as one of the largest of the camps constructed soon after 1946 to house workers building the Garrison Dam just to the west. In the tradition of earlier planned communities, Riverdale was designed to be self-...
incorporated shortly afterward. Planned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Riverdale was federal owned until 1986, when it was incorporated as a town and the houses then sold to private individuals. Riverdale is organized as a semicircle...
Historically, Minot has had a colorful history as something of a wide open town where Prohibition-era bootlegging and crime were not uncommon. Minot came into existence in 1887 as a stop on the Great Northern (GN) Railway that was being built through the...
Though the Badlands are present in only part of the southwestern region, the region’s landscape was shaped by erosion from the Little Missouri River on its northerly course to the Missouri River. The...
Situated at the confluence of the Heart River and Missouri River, Mandan was founded in 1881 and rebounded from several disastrous fires. Mandan is proud of its western “cowboy” heritage and of a whistlestop visit to the community by...
Soon after the first shipment of livestock arrived in 1883, livestock raising became a substantial enterprise in southwestern North Dakota. Dickinson became the main trading center for a one-hundred-and-fifty-mile radius. The Medora and Black Hills...
Nestled below the bluffs on the Little Missouri River, Medora was founded in 1883 by the French-born Marquis de Morès. Here he established a large meatpacking plant, stores, and an impressive house now known as the Chateau de Mores (...
Although the 2010 census records that Marmarth has 136 residents, the village, situated at the Little Missouri River bridge crossing of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (the Milwaukee Road), might seem a ghost town to many visitors...
The buildings and landscapes of south central North Dakota were shaped by Germans from Russia, who patiently imposed their substantial agricultural capabilities on the dry lands of the...
Long before white settlement of the northern Great Plains began, a ford on the site of present-day Bismarck was known to Plains Indian tribes as one of the narrowest and least dangerous crossings of the Missouri River. Stone tools and...
The cultural landscape of Nebraska is intimately linked to its geography and climate. The state is located on a segment of the Great Plains that slopes gradually from 5,400 feet above sea level in the west to 840...
Belknap County, along with Carroll County, was established by act of the state legislature in 1840. Originally it was part of Strafford County. It is named for Dr. Jeremy Belknap, a noted theologian, naturalist, educator, historian and the author of The History of New-Hampshire...
In 1840 Carroll County was created from Strafford County by act of the state legislature. Belknap County was formed at the same time. Carroll achieved its full, modern-day size by virtue of another legislative act in 1853, which annexed Bartlett, Jackson (Adams), and Hart’s...
Coos County, New Hampshire’s largest, was created from Grafton County, one of the five original counties in the state. Comprising the entire area north of Grafton and Carroll counties, Coos was formed by a legislative enactment in 1803. In c. 1805 the southern boundary was modified...
The Province of New Hampshire was originally divided into five counties, of which Grafton, known as “The Fifth,” was established by an act of the colonial legislature in 1771. Named for Augustus Henry Fitzroy, the Duke of Grafton, this vast area was intended to contain...
In “Seeing New Mexico,” J.B. Jackson wrote that “We learn about history by reading it in school; we learn to see it when we travel, and for Americans the place where we see most clearly the impact of time on a landscape is New Mexico.” He added, “Our New Mexico history is more complicated than most...
To understand Nevada's architecture one must know its natural environment. Although indigenous peoples learned to survive in the harsh landscape, since Euro-Americans settled there in the mid-nineteenth century, Nevada has been regarded as a desert wasteland, rich in natural...
Although northwestern Nevada covers a relatively small part of the state, centered in the Reno-Sparks–Carson City–Lake Tahoe metropolitan area, it has the greatest range of architectural styles and types. The Truckee and Carson rivers and the Comstock Lode in the valleys and mountain...
Crystal Bay, on the north shore of Lake Tahoe, experienced slower development than other points along the lake because only narrow, winding roads lead to it from California. Nevertheless, in the late 1920s residential subdivisions brought more people to the area. With the completion of...
The area around Glenbrook was settled by Anglo-Americans in 1860, when prospectors traveled over the Sierra and around the southern end of Lake Tahoe on their way to the Comstock Lode. Entrepreneur Augustus Pray built the first sawmill here, exploiting the abundant forests to produce...
Zephyr Cove was named after the Washoe Zephyr, the fierce westerly wind that occasionally torments the region. Anglo-Americans settled the area in 1862 about the time the Bigler Toll Road was constructed over Spooner Summit and down to Carson City. Like Glenbrook, Zephyr Cove and Marla...
Stateline stands right at the border of Nevada and California. It is difficult to say which side of the boundary is less attractive and more reflective of late twentieth-century throwaway American culture. Stateline's half-dozen high-rise casinos crowd the state line and sidewalks along...
The second largest city in Nevada with a population of 165,940 (as of 1998), Reno sprawls across the Truckee Meadows, a fertile high-desert valley fed by the Truckee River just east of the Sierra Nevada range. The city started out as a small emigrant way station, the staging point for parties...
