| Summary: | overnight a town appeared, farms sprang up, and the land was inhabited. Epilogue We have taken a brief look at a millennia of human activity that remains shrouded in mystery. Human events were a rarity on this land but when seen over the span of many centuries much has happened. This was a region of nomadic people who left few marks on the land. It was a place virtually uninhabited. Until a century ago this land was truly a wilderness. With the sudden appearance of the 1880's settlers, all that was changed. With settlement a new and different culture swept the land. Here was a type of people never before seen on these prairies. This was an agricultural people who intended to remain. They saw potential in the rich soil and were determined to find a good life here. These people left their mark on the land. They plowed the sod, planted trees, built homes, started schools, organized churches, set up businesses, and developed the town of Galesburg. These are the people we meet on the following pages. These are the people whose names are remembered and whose stories are told. Submitted by James Aluiin THE LAND The flat, treeless landscape and rich soils that attracted farmers to the Galesburg area are geologically very recent, being formed only a few thousand years ago. In contrast an underlying layer of sedimentary rock is estimated to be sixty- five million years old. For millions of years these ancient rocks lay at the surface and were carved by wind and water into a stark, rugged landscape much like that of western North Dakota today. The forerunner of the Red River is believed to have flowed nearby through a spectacular gorge as much as six hundred feet deep. With the coming of the ice age slightly less than a million years ago a series of glaciers, advancing southward over much of the continent, dramatically altered this appearance. The most recent glacial advance began about fifty thousand years ago when once again cooling climatic conditions caused heavy snow accumulations across Canada. Just as mountain glaciers are formed today, the snows compacted to form ice and the accumulating weight from above eventually caused the base of the ice to flow outward. From a central point west of the Hudson Bay the mountain of ice spread in all directions. Year by year it inched southward, picking up soil and rocks and carrying them along. About twenty thousand years ago the leading edge of the glacier overrode the Galesburg area and continued southward. Debris filled ice, estimated to be hundreds of feet thick, remained over the area until about twelve thousand five hundred years ago when warmer conditions caused the glacier to retreat back to this point. As the ice melted immense quantities of rock, gravel and silt were laid down burying all traces of the previous landscape. A test hole drilled within a mile of Galesburg revealed that the total thickness of debris left by this and previous glaciers of the ice age is nearly three hundred feet. The retreating ice sheet blocked the normal northward drainage of the Red River Valley, causing glacial Lake Agassiz to form to the south of it. The lake, roughly coincided with the valley, eventually covering two hundred thousand square miles extending from near the Hudson Bay to northeastern South Dakota. About twelve thousand years ago its icy waters completely covered Galesburg Township. Near the center of the Red River Valley the water was nearly three hundred feet deep, while at the future location of Galesburg, located near the western shore of the lake, the depth was approximately a hundred feet. The sharp rise in elevation seen two miles west of Galesburg today marks the westernmost boundary of the lake. The natural dam of ice had barely retreated from the Galesburg area when the ancestral Elm River began flowing into the lake from the west. The fast flowing stream carried huge quantities of sand and silt into the lake forming a broad delta. Referred to by geologists as the Galesburg Delta, these deposits covered most of Galesburg and Norman townships producing the light, sandy soils found there today. About eleven thousand five hundred years ago the level of Lake Agassiz began to drop slowly. The draining proceeded in a series of steps, the water pausing long enough at each level to establish a shoreline beach. Four separate shorelines were formed within the township, each marked by a characteristic- scarp or drop in elevation and by wave-washed beach deposits. From the Harvey Erickson farm on the east to the Oscar Graven farm six miles to the west the otherwise flat prairie periodically rises over the telltale shorelines of the old lake. The small gravel pits on the Bring farms east of town are dug into one of its broad shallow beaches. A fifth shoreline is noticeable by a very prominent scarp about eight miles east of Galesburg in Greenfield Township. Following the formation of this beach shortly after eleven thousand five hundred years ago the lake dropped rapidly. A temporary resurgence of the glacier caused a refilling of Lake Agassiz but the water never advanced beyond this point. With the area now free of the glacial lake the Elm River, aided by heavy rains at the end of the ice age. cut its present u- shaped course through the township leaving the landscape essentially as it appears today. Prairie grasses flourished on the ancient lake bed for the next eleven thousand years, building a thick layer of black topsoil. The fertility of this soil stems partly from its mineral content derived from break down of glacial materials. In the farmlands near Galesburg today the reminders of the ice age are everywhere. Rocks and boulders piled in the fields and along the shelter belts planted to protect the light soil from wind erosion testify to the presence of the glaciers. The gravel pits and long low ridges running through the fields are reminders of the glacial lake that followed them. Even the fertility of the soil, Galesburg's most precious resource, is a legacy of the ice age. Submitted by Curt Haakenson THE SETTLERS ARRIVE Following the Civil War the progression of settlement through the American West approached the Red River Valley. In the 187()'s a combination of factors turned the previous trickle of settlers into a flood. The expanding milling centers of Minneapolis and St. Paul created an insatiable demand for hard spring wheat. Railroad construction provided the means ot getting it to market and also facilitated the movement of land- seekers into the region. A wave of immigrants from Europe joined Americans and Canadians attracted to the fertile lands ot the vallev. 15 Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
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