Editing Wahpeton, North Dakota (section)

==History==
{{More citations needed section|date=November 2010}}

[[File:Merchants Hotel in Wahpeton, N.D., late 1800s.jpg|thumb|left|Merchants Hotel in Wahpeton, North Dakota, {{circa|1880–1899}}]]

The first European explorer in the area was [[Jonathan Carver]] in 1767. He explored and mapped the Northwest at the request of [[Robert Rogers (soldier)|Major Robert Rogers]], commander of [[Fort Michilimackinac]]. This British fort at [[Mackinaw City, Michigan]], protected the passage between [[Lake Michigan]] and [[Lake Huron]] of the [[Great Lakes]]. In 1763 the British had extended their reach in Canada and territory west of the Appalachian Mountains, taking over former French colonial territories after defeating the French in the [[Seven Years' War]].

Carver's mission was to find the [[Northwest Passage]], the imagined waterway to the Orient which Rogers (and many other explorers of the time) believed existed. Carver could not find what does not exist, but his account of exploration helped attract [[fur trader]]s and other explorers to this territory.

More than 100 years after Carver's expedition, a U.S. government surveying party passed through the Wahpeton area. With the Civil War over, the government wanted to encourage development in the West. J. W. Blanding, a member of the expedition, was so impressed by the fertile river valley that he returned to his Wisconsin home determined to move his family and property to the [[Dakota Territory]]. Blanding so influenced other Wisconsin settlers that many had reached the Wahpeton area and homesteaded there before Blanding arranged his return.

[[File:St. John’s Catholic Church in Wahpeton, N.D., 1898.jpg|thumb|upright|left|St. John's Catholic Church in Wahpeton, North Dakota, 1898]]

The first settler was Morgan T. Rich. His plow turned the first furrow of rich black bottomland in 1869. When other settlers arrived, they formed a tiny community and named it Richville, commemorating both its founder and the fertile quality of the soil.

In 1871, a U.S. post office opened. At the same time, the town's name was changed to ''Chahinkapa'', a [[Lakota language|Lakota]] Sioux word meaning "the end of the woods". Two years later, the county was organized and named Chahinkapa County.

Later that year the county was renamed Richland County and the town of Chahinkapa renamed Wahpeton. This was derived from the [[Dakota language|Dakota]] name of the local band of [[Sioux|Dakota]] Indians, the ''Wakhpetonwan.'' The name in Dakota means "leaf dwellers." They adopted this name at an earlier time when they lived in the vicinity of [[Lake Mille Lacs]], before they were displaced by the [[Ojibwe]] and pushed to the west.<ref name = Upham>{{cite book|last=Upham |first=Warren |author-link=Warren Upham |title=Minnesota Place Names, A Geographical Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition |publisher=Minnesota Historical Society |year=2001 |location=Saint Paul, Minnesota |pages=75 |isbn=0-87351-396-7}}</ref>

[[File:Northern Pacific Depot in Wahpeton, N.D., 1880s.jpg|thumb|left|Northern Pacific Depot in Wahpeton, North Dakota, 1880s]]

Growth of the village of Wahpeton was quite slow during the first few years, but it increased rapidly in 1872 with the completion of a railroad line into [[Breckenridge, Minnesota]], a tiny community across the [[Bois de Sioux River]]. The St. Paul and Pacific Railway (now the [[Great Northern Railway (U.S.)|Great Northern]]) had entered the region. The railroad generated a booming business in [[flatboat]] building in both communities. Flatboats could carry freight directly from the railroad downriver via the Red River of the North (which flowed north) to northern parts of the state and to [[Winnipeg]], Manitoba, Canada.

The railroad line attracted many more settlers to the area—both migrants from the Eastern United States, Native Americans, and new European immigrants. [[German American|Germans]], [[Czech Americans|Bohemians]], [[Scandinavian Americans|Scandinavians]], and Native Americans moved to Richland County to file for homesteads. In 1874, Jacob Morvin and Joseph Sittarich opened the county's first retail store in Wahpeton. By 1876 the traffic between Wahpeton and Breckenridge had grown past the ferry's capacity. A bridge was built across the Bois de Sioux River connecting the towns.

Another flurry of growth occurred in 1880 when the [[St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba Railroad]] crossed the river and pushed its tracks on toward the northwest. By 1883 the population of Wahpeton was estimated to be as high as 1,400 people.

In 1888, the Northern Light Electric Company (NLEC) was organized here. It made Wahpeton among North Dakota's first cities to be electrified. In 1909, NLEC became the first customer of the newly founded [[Otter Tail Power Company]]. In 1913, NLEC's owner, C. B. Kidder, sold his company to Otter Tail Power and became its first general manager. In 1927, Otter Tail Power built what was then its largest power plant at Wahpeton, naming it Kidder Station. The plant was removed in 1977; the site is now a park.

In 1889, the [[Red River Valley University]] was established in Wahpeton. It later was renamed the [[North Dakota State College of Science]].

On June 10, 1897, a lightning bolt struck the main pole in a Ringling Brothers Circus tent as it was being erected, breaking the pole and causing three deaths. The lives lost are commemorated with a monument in a graveyard south of Wahpeton.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Jackson|first=William|title=Dakota Mysteries & Oddities, 2022 Edition|publisher=Valley Star Publishing|year=2021|isbn=978-0-9677349-9-6|location=Dickinson, ND|pages=74–76}}</ref>

In 1904, the U.S. government established the [[Wahpeton Indian School]] here. The boarding school operated into the 1970s. It was intended to educate Native American children from reservations and tribes in northern Minnesota, North Dakota, and northern South Dakota. It was an [[Indian boarding school]], designed to assimilate the children to mainstream language, culture and religion. In most such schools, children were required to use English rather than their native languages (which were many among these groups), dress in Euro-American style, and practice Christianity. The school has since been transferred to an inter-tribal group, chartered under the federally recognized [[Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota Oyate]] and funded by the [[Bureau of Indian Education]]. The tribes renamed the school Circle of Nations School and operate it, serving children in grades 4–8.