“Minot, this is Minot, North Dakota, prepare to meet your doom,” the conductor called out when the train came into town.

Minot was the end of “the empire builder” James J. Hill’s Great Northern Railway’s line in 1886 and whenever a train came into town, the story goes the conductor would call out this statement.

Another version of the story is the railway conductor was named Casper Sands and it was his invariable habit in calling the station to say, “Minot, this M-I-N-O-T, the end of the line. Prepare to meet your God!” Galen Brown, associate professor of history at Minot State University, gave this version in “Exploring Minot 1885-1900.”

Hill’s Great Northern Railway ended its push through the state for that winter after having difficulty constructing a trestle across a coulee west of Minot. It was the end of the railway’s line.

When the construction halted on the railroad, a tent town immediately sprang up. It grew so rapidly practically overnight that it became known as “The Magic City,” a moniker the city of Minot still uses. Over the next five months, the population grew to more than 5,000 residents.

The townsite for Minot was selected in November 1886, on land owned by Erik Ramstad, who settled here in 1883, according to the 1966 edition of “Origins of North Dakota Place Names”

Situated in the deep valley of the Souris (Mouse) River, Minot, the town, was named for Henry D. Minot, a railroad investor and friend of James J. Hill as well as an ornithologist and Harvard classmate and friend of Theodore Roosevelt. Minot was incorporated on June 28, 1887.

North Dakota’s railroad history goes way back to the territorial period.

Before the coming of the railroads during the early 1870s, transportation in northern Dakota Territory was limited to river and overland stage or ox cart travel, according to the National Register of Historic Places.

Probably no single factor has contributed more to the settlement and development of North Dakota and the northwest than the railroads, related Dennis J. Lutz, MD, in an article about Railroad History of Ward County for a centennial history book. He said railroads brought people, supplies and transportation to the remote western territories and provided markets for what the settlers had to sell.

The Northern Pacific was the first railroad to enter North Dakota when it reached Moorhead, Minn., across the river from Fargo in 1871, then proceeded west. By 1873, the railroad reached Bismarck.

However, the Northern Pacific soon had competition the Great Northern Railway a railway with its beginning as the St. Paul and Pacific. James J. Hill, founder of the Great Northern, led the charge and pushed his railroad west, creating a transcontinental railroad. Hill’s line reached Williston in 1887. The mainline linking North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean was completed in 1893.

A second major railroad, the Soo Line, officially the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault St. Marie Railway, brought more prosperity to Ward County, with Minot enjoying a reputation as the rail center of northwestern North Dakota, Lutz reported.

Other major railroads built in the state were the Chicago and Northwestern and the Chicago-Milwaukee and St. Paul.

Many towns popped up as the railroad was built in the state. Some towns that already were formed moved closer to the railroad.

“Old Ryder,” which began as “Centerville,” existed for three years without a railroad. When the Soo Line decided to extend its branch from Max west, the townsite was moved four miles north to a new site and new Ryder began, the Ryder Golden Jubilee book reported. That railroad line was completed as far as Ryder in November 1906, and the first train, a steel train, arrived Nov. 7. A blizzard then blocked the line completely.

“Toward spring the railroad sent a rotary snowplow to open the line and when the train arrived in Ryder, it carried one carload of supplies bottled beer! However, the citizens were so happy to see the first train that they threw a welcoming party for the train crew which delayed them several hours before moving west, resulting in the superintendent of the division discharging the entire crew. It took a petition signed by nearly everyone in town to get the men reinstated to their jobs,” according to the city’s anniversary book.

Many settlers traveled to North Dakota by railroad.

Hearing land was available in North Daakota for filing on a homestead, families in other states made their way here in the early 1900s. They would load a railroad car with their belongings and set out for North Dakota. Some could speak little or no English and had very little money to buy food for themselves and their families. When they got as far as they could by train, they might load all their belongings on an ox-drawn wagon to make their journey across the prairie to reach wherever they planned to establish a new home.

The railroads tied North Dakota to the grain markets in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Settlement progressed as the rail lines extended through the state and the railroads promoted the region, also bringing supplies to the settlers. The railroads “created” North Dakota, said D. Jerome Tweton, in “Railroads Open Dakota for Settlement.

Because of its central location, Minot was chosen for the Great Northern’s Gavin Yard just east of Minot. Now the huge yard is in use by Great Northern’s successor BNSF.

Today the Burlington-Northern Santa Fe BNSF and the Canadian Pacific Railway are the major railroads serving the area, although some short line railroads continue to operate in the state.

The BNSF Railway today is the product of nearly 400 different railroad lines that merged or were acquired over the course of 160 years, according to BNSF information.

In 1990, Canadian Pacific took control of the Soo Line, which had absorbed the Milwaukee Road in 1985 and the Minneapolis, Northfield and Southern Railway in 1982.

Amtrak provides the passenger train service to this area.

The railroad created the city of Minot and many other area communities, and continues to be major factors in making these communities thrive.