The Place. "Moorhead was founded in 1871 and is named after William G. Moorhead (1811-1895), a director of the Northern Pacific Railway. The railway provided the stimulus for economic and population growth in the Moorhead area. Individuals moved west to take advantage of the Homestead Act, through which they were given acreage of property in exchange for farming the land and making their home in the area.
The Red River of the North served as a transfer point for goods and passengers between the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul and Winnipeg, Manitoba. Goods were hauled by oxcart from St. Cloud, Minnesota, to Moorhead, then loaded onto riverboats for the journey north on the Red River.
Moorhead was officially incorporated in 1881, and later that same decade added electric, water, sewer, fire and police services. That's also when Moorhead developed a reputation as "Sin City," with more than 100 bars at a time when neighboring Fargo, ND did not allow the sale of alcohol." Information from City of Moorhead website; (
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The Person.William B. Moorhead was born 0n July 7, 1811 in Halifax, Pennsylvania. One of seven children of William Moorhead and Elizabeth Kennedy. After working in canal administration, he was appointed supervisor of the Alleghany Portage Railroad in 1840, then United States Consul in Valparaíso, Chile.
In 1848 , during the gold rush in California , he founded the firm of "Moorhead, Whitehead and Waddington", to supply prospectors with food from Chile, in exchange for precious metals which he recycles on European markets. The significant profits of this company allow him to found the bank Jay Cooke & Co with his brother-in-law Jay Cooke. In 1857, he also became president of the "Sunbury and Erie Railroad".
The April 27, 1870, he became administrator of the Saint-Paul and Pacific Railroad, a subsidiary of the Northern Pacific Railroad, in Duluth, Minnesota, while a small town in the region is named after his surname. In the summer of 1873, he participated in the Yellowstone River Expedition, which ended in skirmishes with Indian warriors.
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"Small town"? Ok, Wikipedia got that right. Moorhead started small and while the biggest town in this part of Minnesota it still has a population a little under 43,000.