North Dakota: A Guide to the Northern Prairie StateFederal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration for the State of North Dakota
History
North Dakota: A Guide to the Northern Prairie State
Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration for the State of North Dakota
North Dakota; North Dakota -- Guidebooks
Right on this road is BELMONT, =11.5 m.=, a ghost town which in the
1870's was a booming river port known as Frog Point. It was named by
Capt. Sam Painter, one of the first Red River pilots, on an early
trip down the river, probably in 1860. Finding the shores almost
covered with frogs, he is said to have erected a rude sign reading
"Frog Point", and through the rise and fall of the town which grew up
there the name remained. In 1871 the Hudson's Bay Co. established a
trading post on the point. A year later, because of the fall of the
river, Frog Point became head of navigation, and in short order was a
rendezvous for boatmen, trappers, hunters, teamsters, and drifters,
all living in tents or hastily constructed buildings. Teamsters
hauling freight overland from the S. in their heavy, eight-horse,
high-wheeled "jumpers", and trappers and Indians with their catches,
here boarded the Hudson's Bay Co. steamer _International_, and James
J. Hill's _Selkirk_. The town, cut from the woods on the bank of the
Red, and towered over by tall oaks, became a wilderness metropolis,
and its reputation spread to Europe. In England it was believed by
many to be a city of broad avenues and tall spires, second in size
only to Liverpool, and filled with the hum of industry. Foreign
visitors, traveling to Fort Garry, looked eagerly for this Red River
capital, and even their disillusionment on seeing the little backwoods
city could not dim its reputation. In its streets rough, rugged,
heavy-booted woodsmen, rivermen, and trappers thundered up and down
the wooden walks, and many a citizen was hastily despatched by their
44's. Heavy-jowled saloonkeepers, slim-fingered sleek gamblers, and gay
dance-hall girls were all a part of the mushroom town.
Nature brought downfall to the Point as quickly as she had elevated
it to importance. The river fell lower still, and Frog Point lost its
position as head of navigation. Many of its inhabitants departed as
swiftly as they had come. Fire wiped out a number of buildings which
were never rebuilt. Trade dwindled and storekeepers shut up shop. Some
20 years later, with the river level again up, the town revived as a
grain-shipping center, but the flood of 1897 ruined grain elevators and
their contents, and within a short time the bustle of the town again
faded into the past. Today the Hudson's Bay Co. building, which houses
a farm implement shop, is all that remains of the early affluence.
The present population of the hamlet, which is not even an organized
village, is 33.
CUMMINGS, =124.5 m.= (935 alt., 84 pop.), named for Henry Cumings, an
early G. N. employee who helped build the railroad, is principally a
Scandinavian community. Originally spelled with one "m", its name was
misspelled so consistently that the Post Office Department legitimized
the misspelling by inserting the second "m."
At =129.5 m.= is the junction with ND 7, a graveled highway (_see Side
Tour 1A_).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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