Great Northern Freight Warehouse

Fargo's Great Northern Freight Warehouse and Depot is significant under both Criteria A and C. Because its Northern Pacific counterpart in the City's Main Avenue industrial corridor was demolished several years ago, and many of its neighboring private storage facilities have also been removed, it remains as an increasingly rare example of a railroad-related warehouse building from the Second Dakota Boom (1895 - 1917). Also, unlike its sibling Great Northern facility in Grand Forks, constructed in 1904 but never substantially altered, the Fargo warehouse was constructed in three major building campaigns--1902, 1923/1927, and 1956/1959--reflecting subsequent periods of economic growth and the City's somewhat different role as a rail center and regional distribution point. Using repetitive heavy timber post-and-beam construction to create a linear double-loaded single-story volume, the building is also notable under Criteria C as a warehouse type distinctive in both form and technology.

The history of Fargo is inextricably linked with the history of the railroad network that brought it into being. Precise locations for what would become, Fargo, Dakota Territory, and her sister city Moorhead, Minnesota, was jealously guarded by the survey crews of the Northern Pacific railroad as they moved northwest from Minneapolis toward the head of navigation on the Red River of the North. Thomas Canfield, Director of the N.P., recognized that any city at the crossing of the Red was destined to become the next great metropolis west of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. It would serve as a section point for the railroad, a regional center for wholesale distribution, as well as a funnel for the grain which would flow toward the mills of Minneapolis.