Three Things Thursday: Grand Forks History Projects

Those of you who follow this blog know that over the past decade, I’ve tried to cultivate an interest in local history. Some of this comes from a kind of restless curiosity and some of it comes from an opportunity to collaborate with members of the community to understand and present the region’s history. 

Recently, some of this work will contribute to next year’s celebration of the 150th anniversary of the region’s platting which opened it to European settlement. Some of it, however, will likely pay dividends further along the line.

Thing the First

Over the last several months, a small team of undergraduates have been working on normalizing the US census data from Grand Forks from the 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940, and 1950 census. So far this has involved normalizing street names which is the first step in preparing this data to connect it with addresses in contemporary Grand Forks. The next step is to build a concordance between the normalized census street names and the street names in the current Grand Forks GIS. 

There are, of course, streets in the census that no long exist in Grand Forks — particularly from the Lincoln Drive neighborhood and the neighborhood removed as part of urban renewal in the 1960s. During the pandemic, I digitized the neighborhood removed during urban renewal which was home to Grand Forks’ Jewish community for the first half of the 20th century. Over the past year, we have gotten scanned maps of the Lincoln Drive neighborhood prior to the flood of 1997. These maps will provide us with the locations of homes in the area before their demolition. There are also vexing little issues such as the renaming of streets and locating obscure addresses that we need to sort out, but a solid foundation in the data is a good first step.

Thing the Second

We’re also working to produce 150, 150-word essays that tell the story of Grand Forks. Like most good stories, these will not be a linear or cohesive narrative. Instead, they’ll offer fragments of experience, contradicting statements, blurry images, and invitations for reflection, more research, or even deeper thinking. The goal is to bring them together into a book that celebrates the plurality of Grand Forks over the past 150 years.

As a casual writer, I’ve been finding the challenge of writing to an arbitrary (if not inappropriate) limit pretty entertaining. Just yesterday I banged out this:

Just a bit south of 11th avenue, a sidewalk without a road connects Belmont and Reeves Drive. This sidewalk traces the route of Clark Street (or 12th Avenue) which appeared on maps from 1916, but by 1921 it had been closed and the four houses built on its former route. The sidewalk once provided walking access to the Lutheran College which stood on the west side of Belmont Road between 13th Avenue and 12th Avenue. Built in 1892 in an imposing Second Empire style, the Lutheran College began as a high school before being purchased by Hans H. Aaker, the former president of Concordia College. He turned it into a business school and eventually traded the building to Lutheran Bible College. Lutheran Bible College sold the building in 1933. It was demolished in 1935. Today the ghost sidewalk between Belmont and Reeves is a ghostly reminder of this neighborhood’s past.

I’ve also started to think a bit about writing some more fantastic versions of local history. This seems like a nice chance to explore pseudo-history as a way to think about our landscapes differently and to reflect on the stories that we tell one another about where we live:  

While virtually unknown today, the Northern Plains Theater during World War II was as fraught with intrigue and heroism was any during the war. By 1943, riverside communities across the US experienced periodic panics fomented by news that German gunboats, the Graf Steffi and Dred Scott, were active in US estuaries. While the Red River of the North refused to accommodate ships of this size, there was fear that Hitler might attempt to turn the region’s significant German communities against the US cause. Grand Forks endured rumors of the famed German “Unterwassereichhörnchen” submarines capable of traveling up even narrow rivers to make contact with local sympathizers or sabotage rail bridges. Today a large concrete tower, the last remaining vestige of Grand Forks’ WWII subs spotting station stands across from Lincoln Park on the banks of the Red River. Manned throughout WWII, it represents a monument to region’s quiet patriotism.  

Thing the Third

 As readers of this blog almost certainly have figured out, I’m part of a group (including the Grand Forks Historic Preservation Commission) working to document mid-century Grand Forks. This includes efforts by Susan Caraher to document the first post-war development in Grand Forks and the mid-century schools, my work to document the 1958 flood wall, and our work to document the development of town over the last 75 years. 

I’m not entirely sure where any of this work is going right now. Some of it is compliance oriented and leads to its own set of products, but it feels like there is enough her for something bigger and more synthetic. I have a general feeling that many of the folks who have been interested in historic Grand Forks over the past several decades are not quite as moved or committed to thinking about how to understand and preserve our mid-century heritage. (Of course, this is a sweeping and unfair generalization. After all, the Myra Museum features a mid-century Lustron house, and the Grand Forks’ Historic Preservation Commission has enthusiastically supported work on the post-war city). Maybe there’s room for a small book that explores the tension between our traditional understanding of heritage and post-war history of Grand Forks?