The Ancient Town In North Dakota That's Loaded With Fascinating History
By Leah|Published July 29, 2018
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Leah
Author
Leah moved to North Dakota when she was 12 years old and has traveled from the Red River Valley to the badlands and many places in between. She loves small-town life and currently enjoys living on a small farm in the ND prairie. She's always had a passion for writing and has participated in novel writing challenges such as NaNoWriMo multiple times. Her favorite part about this job is recognizing small businesses that deserve a boost and seeing the positive affect her articles can have on their traffic, especially in rural areas that might have otherwise gone overlooked.
North Dakota’s history goes back long before it became a state. One of the very earliest settlements and trading hubs in the state became the oldest town in the state, and you can visit it today to see its rich history. That town is Pembina, and its history began more than a hundred years prior to North Dakota even being known as North Dakota. Check it out:
Pembina was first established as a trading post in the late 1700s.
The town's future site started with Fort Pembina, a trading post made in 1797 — just a couple decades after the United States became a country! It became the oldest settlement made by European settlers in both North and South Dakota. Technically, the fort wasn't part of the United States until 1823 as they believed it wasn't within the boundaries of the country. And even before all that, it was an important place for Native American tribes as it had the borders of Lakota, Chippewa, and Assiniboine tribe territories.
The first post office in Pembina was established in 1851.
That post office was the first one in North Dakota, and by 1860 Pembina was the most populous place in the state while it was still the Dakota Territory.
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Today, Pembina still holds the title of the oldest town in North Dakota and oldest settlement of both North and South Dakota.
The state museum holds historic artifacts and a lot of information about the lengthy story this area has, from the Native American days all the way to the present. It serves as a snapshot of North Dakota's history as a whole even though it surpasses North Dakota's statehood by a century.
One of the coolest things about the Pembina State Museum and another reason to visit is the towering observation deck you can go up.
