| Summary: | T HE FIRS T SIX' YEARS OF GRAN D F 0 R K S 77 St. Cloud and Alexandria. In those times Mr. and Mrs. Viels entertained many distinguished persons who chanced to visit the upper part of the valley. When the business transactions of the post was transferred to Grand Forks, Mr. and Mrs. Viets also came.and took charge of the Northwestern hotel. Thus Mr. Viets early became identified with the history of the city of his choice. In 1873 0. S. Freeman was appointed postmaster of Grand Forks, succeeding John W. Stewart, and he moved the office to the Hudson Bay company's store. The Northwestern hotel being completed and opened, the business of the stage station was likewise transferred to the settlement and to that building during the same year. Fronting the settlement there was a limited opening of the timber, no great amount of it then having been cleared from the present city front and through this open space passengers enroute from Ontario to Manitoba, or any others, saw from the upper deck of the Selkirk a small and rather incongruous settlement. The population was still small, numbering that year about 100 persons. At this time the place consisted of the Hudson Bay company's store and hotel, also another hotel built the previous year, Capt. Griggs' house, the saw-mill, and a small number of cabins and shacks. Then there was the ferry, boat yard and stage station buildings above the settlement. The place also bad a telegraph office. It was merely a frontier settlement, none consisting exclusively of white people existing to tbe west of it short of the Missouri river. The times were not yet ripe for town building in this part of the Red River Valley. FIRST LAND ENTRIES, PUBLIC SCHOOL AND NEWSPAPER. Thus far onward the settlement was on the public lands, consequently there were no transfers of land from party to party excepting in the way of squatter's rights, which do not become matters of record. Persons holding claims around Grand Forks prior to 1874 were squatters, unless such had scripted the land. The land in tlie county around Grand Forks was surveyed in 1873 and was opened to settlement in January, 1874. The United States Land Ollice was then located at Pembina. The first entries of land around Grand Forks were made in the early part of 1874 by Alex. Griggs, 0. S. Freeman, John Fadden, Sr., J. S. Eshel- raaii and likely by others. When the county was organized its commissioners remembered tbe cause of education. Tlie northern half of the county was accordingly designated as school district No. 1, and the southern half as school district No, 2. This proyision was made at their meeting o! March 2, 1875. But before this time definite action to erect a public school building at Grand Forks had been taken. Sometime in the year 1874 Mrs. Richmond taught a small school Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
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