Fargo, North Dakota, and Moorhead, Minnesota, have existed on opposite sides of the Red River of the North since 1871. Ever since, heavy moisture from melting snow has combined with spring rains to threaten both towns with a rapidly rising, twisting river. Minor flooding is almost an annual event, and on six occasions the two towns experienced major floods requiring evacuations of large numbers of residents. The history of these floods is covered in the photographs contained in this book, ...

Moorhead, Minnesota, was founded in 1872 as a major stop on the Northern Pacific Railroad during its push toward the Pacific Ocean. The town grew to prominence in western Minnesota because of its location at the intersection of the rail line and the commercially important Red River of the North. Garnering an unenviable reputation in its early years as a wide-open town, dominated by its saloons, Moorhead subsequently developed as an important rural service center. Tracing the history of Moo...

Few stories in the annals of railroading are as compelling as the construction, evolution, and astounding successes of the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National railways. This sprawling volume combines two of Voyageur Press' most successful Railroad Color History titles into one volume taking in the grand scope of both railroads. Author Tom Murray presents fastidiously researched and concisely presented histories of each railroad, along with more than 300 photographs, including rare archi...

William C. Van Horne was one of North America's most accomplished men. Born in Illinois in 1843, Van Horne started working in the railway business at a young age. In 1881 he was lured north to Canada to become general manager of the fledgling Canadian Pacific Ralway. The railroading general pushed through construction of the CPR's transcontinental line and then went on to become the company's president. During his time with the CPR, Van Horne developed a telegraph service, launched the Emp...

A Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and Winner of the Bancroft Prize. "No one has written a better book about a city…Nature's Metropolis is elegant testimony to the proposition that economic, urban, environmental, and business history can be as graceful, powerful, and fascinating as a novel." —Kenneth T. Jackson, Boston Globe

Company town: The very phrase sounds un-American. Yet company towns are the essence of America. Hershey bars, Corning glassware, Kohler bathroom fixtures, Maytag washers, Spam -- each is the signature product of a company town in which one business, for better or worse, exercises a grip over the population. In The Company Town, Hardy Green, who has covered American business for over a decade, offers a compelling analysis of the emergence of these communities and their role in shap...

Rediscover Wisconsin history from the very beginning. A Short History of Wisconsin recounts the landscapes, people, and traditions that have made the state the multifaceted place it is today. With an approach both comprehensive and accessible, historian Erika Janik covers several centuries of Wisconsin's remarkable past, showing how the state was shaped by the same world wars, waves of new inhabitants, and upheavals in society and politics that shaped the nation.Swift, aut...

Saskatchewan is the anchor and epitome of the ‘prairie’ provinces, even though half of the province is covered by boreal forest. The Canadian penchant for dividing this vast country into easily-understood ‘regions’ has reduced the Saskatchewan identity to its southern prairie denominator and has distorted cultural and historical interpretations to favour the prairie south.Forest Prairie Edge is a deep-time investigation of the edge land, or ecotone, between the open prairi...

Between 1867 and 2000, the Canadian government sent over 150,000 Aboriginal children to residential schools across the country. Government officials and missionaries agreed that in order to “civilize and Christianize” Aboriginal children, it was necessary to separate them from their parents and their home communities.For children, life in these schools was lonely and alien. Discipline was harsh, and daily life was highly regimented. Aboriginal languages and cultures were denigrated...

On a spring morning in 1914, in the stark foothills of southern Colorado, members of the United Mine Workers of America clashed with guards employed by the Rockefeller family, and a state militia beholden to Colorado’s industrial barons. When the dust settled, nineteen men, women, and children among the miners’ families lay dead. The strikers had killed at least thirty men, destroyed six mines, and laid waste to two company towns.Killing for Coal offers a bold and original...

The Orillia Spirit tells the history of the city through the stories of its people, who insisted on making their lives and their community alive with significance.

Winner of a Spur Award, presented by the Western Writers of America (WWA), for the Best Western Nonfiction Historical Book.Renowned historian Annette Atkins presents a fresh understanding of how a complex and modern Minnesota came into being in Creating Minnesota. Each chapter of this innovative state history focuses on a telling detail, a revealing incident, or a meaningful issue that illuminates a larger event, social trends, or politics during a period in our past.A thre...