When construction halted on the railroad, a tent town sprang up and over the next few months, its population grew to more than 5,000 residents.

The townsite for Minot was selected in 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, the town was named for Henry D. Minot, a railroad investor and friend of James J. Hill. Henry D. Minot also was an ornithologist and Harvard classmate and friend of Theodore Roosevelt.

The railroad history of North Dakota goes back to territorial days.

Crude oil tank cars on the Canadian-Pacific Railway line at Max are shown in this April 2016 photo

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.

But no single factor has contributed more to the settlement and development of North Dakota and the northwest than the railroads, according to 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 first railroad to enter North Dakota was the Northern Pacific when it reached Moorhead, Minn., across the river from Fargo in the 1870s, then proceeded west. By 1873, the railroad had reached Bismarck.

Soon the Northern Pacific had competition with the Great Northern Railway. Great Northern was developed from the St. Paul and Pacific. James J. Hill, railroad entrepreneur and founder of the Great Northern, pushed his railroad west, creating a transcontinental railroad. His 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 included 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, according to the Ryder Golden Jubilee book. 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.

The railroad brought many settlers to North Dakota.

Individuals, many with families, heard land was available in North Dakota for filing on a homestead and traveled to North Dakota in the early 1900s. Railroad cars were loaded with the belongings of families and they 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.”

With a central location Minot was chosen for the Great Northern’s Gavin Yard just east of the city. Now the huge yard is in use by Great Northern’s successor Burlington Northern Santa Fe – BNSF.

Today BNSF and the Canadian Pacific (CP) Railway are the major railroads serving the area. Some short line railroads also continue to operate in the state.

Today’s BNSF Railway 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, using BNSF track.

Over the years, railroads have been and continue to be an important means to move North Dakota’s crops to ports on both coasts

Crude oil has also grown in importance as a rail-transported commodity.

With the recent years of the Bakken oil boom, rail loading facilities were built in a number of locations in and near the oil fields in western North Dakota.

In 2020, news was made in Minot when the city became the host of the state’s only intermodal operation. Within hours of a news conference announcing Rail Modal Group Minot as the new operator for the intermodal rail service, the first shipping containers were on their way to the nearby AGT Foods.

The facility, to reduce shipping costs for agricultural producers and other industries in the Great Plains, provides service to the ports of Seattle and Tacoma in Washington. It gives producers and processors the opportunity to ship their products worldwide instead of just going to local and regional markets, according to Greg Oberting, president of RMG Minot.

In the area CHS SunPrairie and TriGen Ag Partners have built or are building shuttle grain terminals.

CHS SunPrairie’s 1-million-bushel Wiley Terminal, completed in July 2018, is located just northeast of Lansford along U.S. Highway 83. The new facility sits on 180 acres and has a circle track for around 120 cars. CHS SunPrairie also has rail terminals at Minot and Bowbells.

Currently, a shuttle grain terminal with loop track is being built at Ryder in southwest Ward County by TriGen Ag Partners LLC. Plaza-Makoti Equity Elevator merged with Max Farmers Elevator this past year. TriGen Ag Partners LLC, a newly formed LLC, consists of Agrex Inc. of Minneapolis and the cooperative. The project includes the shuttle grain terminal with 1.050 million storage capacity and slightly more than 10,000 feet of track. The train loader will be capable of loading 140 rail cars. Plans are to have it up and running for harvest this year.

The railroad created the city of Minot and many other area communities, and continues to be a major factor in helping make many North Dakota communities thrive.