| Summary: | THE BEGINNINGS OF GRAND FORKS 61 importance of the great valley plain of tlie Red river. It was through his efforts, in sending a petition to the Postmaster General at Washington that the mail station at the forks of Red - river was designated as a post-office in 1870, and a postmaster appointed for the place. Mr. Cady was the first postmaster of Grand Forks. Some correspondence passed between Cady and Stutsman relative to the matter, and, among other things, the question of naming tlie office was broached. Mr. Cady suggested Grand Forks, a name, he states, already used by the Canadian French employees of the Hudson Bay company and others. Stutsman wrote him a jocose letter about the application of the word "grand" to the tame scenery around the forks of the river, varied only by a couple of log shacks, nevertheless the name was adopted, was likewise given by Stutsman himself to the county some two and a half years later, and was first officially used by the Postoffice Department at Washington. Mr. Cady's commission, which is still in his possession, bears the signature of John A. J. Creswell, Postmaster General under President Grant, and shows that the appointment was made June 15, that Mr. Cady qualified July 18, while the commission is dated August 2, 1870. In procuring the appointment of a postmaster for the mail station at the forks of lied river at that early day when there were no other inhabitants there than those mentioned, at a time too when the mail was only being carried up and down the river road once a week at most, and sometimes in a haphazard fashion, Stutsman evidently presumed that a settlement would be made there, and at no distant day. JAMES J. HILL AND ALEXANDER GRIGGS. James ,I. Hill, now president of the Great Northern Railway system, was, in those early years, a warehouseman of St. Paul. History will accord to the master mind of this man that meed ol credit which is his due for his conception of making the fertile lands of tlie Red River Valley directly tributary to the twin cities by connecting lines of railroad, and for the rapid development of the Northwest which he was instrumental in hastening forward to its present stage of growth. With the Canadian Pacific north and the Northern Pacific south, both in process of construction during the 'seventies, it is evident that the settlement and development of the intervening portion of tlie Red River Valley would soon inevitably have begun to occur. Some railroad company would, therefore, haveseized the opportunity if President Hill had not; but it is, perhaps, safe to say that no other man of present times would or could have accomplished with such characteristic energy and persistency of purpose what he has done, at the time it was done, and so quickly and so well. Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
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