Fargo, North Dakota
Fargo is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Dakota. The population was 125,990 at the 2020 census and estimated at 136,285 in 2024. Fargo and its twin city of Moorhead, Minnesota, form the core of the Fargo–Moorhead metropolitan area, which had a population of 248,591 in 2020. It is the county seat of Cass County.
Fargo was founded in 1871 on the Red River of the North floodplain. It is a cultural, retail, health care, educational, and industrial center for southeastern North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota. North Dakota State University is in the city.
History
Early history
Historically part of Sioux territory, the area that is present-day Fargo was an early stopping point for steamboats traversing the Red River during the 1870s and 1880s. The city was originally named "Centralia", but was later renamed "Fargo" after Northern Pacific Railway director and Wells Fargo Express Company founder William Fargo. During the initial settlement of Fargo, there developed two cities: one called "Fargo on the Prairie" and the other "Fargo in the Timber". "Fargo on the Prairie" was known for being well run by Northern Pacific engineers, while "Fargo in the Timber" remained mostly lawless and full of apparently "desperate and reckless characters", according to The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. Eventually, "Fargo in the Timber" would see its demise after a crackdown by federal authorities, and the modern Fargo would develop out of "Fargo on the Prairie". The area started to flourish after the arrival of the Northern Pacific Railroad and the city became known as the "Gateway to the West."During the 1880s, Fargo became the "divorce capital" of the Midwest because of lenient divorce laws. A major fire struck the city on June 7, 1893, destroying 31 blocks of downtown Fargo, but the city was immediately rebuilt with new buildings made of brick, new streets, and a water system. More than 246 new buildings were built within one year. There were several rumors concerning the cause of the fire.
The North Dakota Agricultural College was founded in 1890 as North Dakota's land-grant university, becoming first accredited by the North Central Association in 1915. In 1960, NDAC became known as North Dakota State University.
20th century
Early in the century, the automobile industry flourished, and in 1905, Fargo became home to the Pence Automobile Company, a company that at one time distributed 29% of all Buicks. In addition, Fargo also hosted a regional Ford assembly plant, which by 1917 was assembling some 70 cars per day. The plant would remain in operation until 1956.On Labor Day in 1910, Theodore Roosevelt visited Fargo to lay the cornerstone of the college's new library. To a crowd of 30,000, Roosevelt spoke about his first visit to Fargo 27 years earlier, and credited his experience homesteading in North Dakota for his eventual rise to the presidency.
Fargo-Moorhead boomed after World War II, and the city grew rapidly. In 1957, it experienced the 1957 Fargo tornado that destroyed a large part of the north end of the city. Ted Fujita, famous for his Fujita tornado scale, analyzed pictures of the Fargo tornado, helping him develop his ideas for "wall cloud" and "tail cloud." These were the first major scientific descriptive terms associated with tornadoes. The construction of two interstates revolutionized travel in the region and pushed growth of Fargo to the south and west of the city limits. In 1972, the West Acres Shopping Center, the largest shopping mall in North Dakota, was constructed near the intersection of the two Interstates. This mall became a catalyst for retail growth in the area.
Recent history
Fargo has continued to expand rapidly but steadily. Since the mid-1980s, the bulk of new residential growth has occurred in the south and southwest zones of the area due to geographic constraints on the north side. The city's major retail districts on the southwest side have likewise seen rapid development.Downtown Fargo has been gentrified due in part to investments by the city and private developers in the Renaissance Zone. Most older neighborhoods, such as Horace Mann, have either avoided decline or been revitalized through housing rehabilitation promoted by planning agencies to strengthen the city's core.
NDSU has grown rapidly into a major research university and forms a major component of the city's identity and economy. Most students live off-campus in the surrounding Roosevelt neighborhood. The university has established a presence downtown through both academic buildings and apartment housing. In addition, NDSU Bison Football has gained a significant following among many area residents. In recent years, Fargo has also become a regional technology and healthcare hub, as a result of Microsoft and Sanford Health both building regional campuses in the city center.
Since the late 1990s, the Fargo-Moorhead Metropolitan Statistical Area has consistently had one of the lowest unemployment rates among MSAs in the United States.
On July 14, 2023, 37-year-old Mohamad Barakat opened fire on a group of police officers in the city who were responding to an unrelated traffic accident. One officer was killed and two others were injured before Barakat was killed by one of the officers at the scene.
Geography
Fargo is a core city of the Fargo-Moorhead, ND–MN Combined Statistical Area, which also includes Moorhead, West Fargo, and Dilworth and outlying communities.Fargo sits on the western bank of the Red River of the North in a flat geographic region known as the Red River Valley. The Red River Valley resulted from the withdrawal of glacial Lake Agassiz, which drained away about 9,300 years ago. The lake sediments deposited from Lake Agassiz made the land around Fargo some of the richest in the world for agricultural uses.
Seasonal floods due to the rising water of the Red River, which flows from the United States into Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada, have presented challenges. The Red flows northward, which means melting snow and river ice, as well as runoff from its tributaries, often create ice dams causing the river to overflow. Fargo's surrounding Red River Valley terrain is essentially flat, leading to overland flooding. Since the potentially devastating 2009 Red River flood, both Fargo and Moorhead have taken great strides in flood protection; only a near-record flood would cause concern today. Work on the FM Diversion has begun and upon completion, it will permanently floodproof the metro for 500-year floods.
Its location makes the city vulnerable to flooding during seasons with above-average precipitation. The Red River's minor flood stage in Fargo begins at a level of 18 feet, with major flooding categorized at 30 feet and above. Many major downtown roadways and access to Moorhead are closed off at this level. Record snowfalls late in 1996 led to flooding in 1997, causing the Red to rise to a record crest of 39.5 feet, nearly overtaking city defenses. In 2008–2009, significant fall precipitation coupled with rapid snowmelt in March 2009 caused the Red to rise to a new record level of 40.84 feet, but again Fargo remained safe, in large part due to flood mitigation efforts instituted after the 1997 event and sandbagging efforts by the city residents. Further upgrades were made to city infrastructure and additional resources brought to bear following the 2009 flood, which caused no issues for the city in 2010 despite another rapid melt that caused the Red to rise to 37 feet. The estimated $1.5 billion FM diversion project is under construction and will channel the Red's water away from the city. As of 2012, Fargo has bought 700 houses in flood-prone areas.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of, of which is land and is water.
Climate
Because of its location in the Great Plains and its distance from both mountains and oceans, Fargo has an extreme humid continental climate, featuring long, bitterly cold winters and warm to hot, humid summers. It lies in USDA Plant hardiness zone 4a. The city features winters among the coldest in the contiguous United States; the coldest month of January has a normal mean temperature of. There is an annual average of 43 days with a minimum of or lower. Snowfall averages per season. Spring and autumn are short and highly variable seasons. Summers have frequent thunderstorms, and the warmest month, July, has a normal mean temperature of ; highs reach on an average of 12.7 days each year. Annual precipitation of is concentrated in the warmer months. Record temperatures have ranged from on January 8, 1887, to on July 6, 1936; the record coldest daily maximum is on January 22, 1936, while, conversely, the record warmest daily minimum was, set four days after the all-time record high. On average, the first and last dates to see a minimum at or below the freezing mark are September 30 and May 8, respectively, allowing a growing season of 144 days.Demographics
Colors=
id:lightgrey value:gray
id:darkgrey value:gray
id:sfondo value:rgb
id:barra value:rgb
id:darkblue value:rgb
ImageSize = width:700 height:350
PlotArea = left:50 bottom:50 top:30 right:30
DateFormat = x.y
Period = from:0 till:133200
TimeAxis = orientation:vertical
AlignBars = late
ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:17100 start:0
ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:8550 start:0
BackgroundColors = canvas:sfondo
BarData=
bar:1880 text:1880
bar:1890 text:1890
bar:1900 text:1900
bar:1910 text:1910
bar:1920 text:1920
bar:1930 text:1930
bar:1940 text:1940
bar:1950 text:1950
bar:1960 text:1960
bar:1970 text:1970
bar:1980 text:1980
bar:1990 text:1990
bar:2000 text:2000
bar:2010 text:2010
bar:2020 text:2020
bar:2023 text:2023
PlotData=
color:barra width:25 align:left
bar:1880 from: 0 till:2693
bar:1890 from: 0 till:5664
bar:1900 from: 0 till:9589
bar:1910 from: 0 till:14331
bar:1920 from: 0 till:21961
bar:1930 from: 0 till:28619
bar:1940 from: 0 till:32580
bar:1950 from: 0 till:38256
bar:1960 from: 0 till:46662
bar:1970 from: 0 till:53365
bar:1980 from: 0 till:61383
bar:1990 from: 0 till:74111
bar:2000 from: 0 till:90599
bar:2010 from: 0 till:105549
bar:2020 from: 0 till:125990
bar:2023 from: 0 till:133188 color:blue
PlotData=
bar:1880 at:2693 fontsize:S text: 2,693 shift:
bar:1890 at:5664 fontsize:S text: 5,664 shift:
bar:1900 at:9589 fontsize:S text: 9,589 shift:
bar:1910 at:14331 fontsize:S text: 14,331 shift:
bar:1920 at:21961 fontsize:S text: 21,961 shift:
bar:1930 at:28619 fontsize:S text: 28,619 shift:
bar:1940 at:32580 fontsize:S text: 32,580 shift:
bar:1950 at:38256 fontsize:S text: 38,256 shift:
bar:1960 at:46662 fontsize:S text: 46,662 shift:
bar:1970 at:53365 fontsize:S text: 53,365 shift:
bar:1980 at:61383 fontsize:S text: 61,383 shift:
bar:1990 at:74111 fontsize:S text: 74,111 shift:
bar:2000 at:90599 fontsize:S text: 90,599 shift:
bar:2010 at:105549 fontsize:S text: 105,549 shift:
bar:2020 at:125990 fontsize:S text: 125,990 shift:
bar:2023 at:133188 fontsize:M text: 133,188 shift:
TextData=
fontsize:S pos:
text:Data from U.S. Census Bureau
As of the 2022 American Community Survey, there are 56,890 estimated households in Fargo with an average of 2.14 persons per household. The city has a median household income of $64,432. Approximately 13.3% of the city's population lives at or below the poverty line. Fargo has an estimated 74.5% employment rate, with 42.4% of the population holding a bachelor's degree or higher and 95.0% holding a high school diploma.
The top nine reported ancestries were German, Norwegian, Irish, English, Subsaharan African, French , Italian, Polish, and Scottish.
The median age in the city was 31.5 years.