The Fargo Forum and Daily Republican Archive

Located along the Red River of the North, where the Northern Pacific Railroad crosses from Minnesota, is North Dakota's largest city, Fargo. In the beginning, it was a rough and rowdy frontier town, with its fair share of bordellos and saloons. In 1876, the population was only 600. But Fargo grew rapidly as settlers responded to the promise of cheap, fertile farmland in the Red River Valley. By 1892, it was a city of more than 8,000 inhabitants; the tents and shanties of earlier days had been replaced mainly by wood-frame buildings. Today, Fargo's population is more than 125,000, with a metropolitan population nearly twice that size.

Having roots in several newspapers going back to 1878, the Fargo Forum and Daily Republican was first published by Major Alanson W. Edwards and Colonel H. C. Plumley on November 17, 1891. When Edwards passed away in 1908, Plumley succeeded him. Although a talented newspaperman, Plumley did not have the necessary business skills. Financial problems forced the paper into receivership, and it was purchased by J. P. Dotson of Crookston, Minnesota, in 1912. Four years later Dotson sold it to Norman B. Black, former publisher and general manager of the Grand Forks Herald, for $100,000. Black took over as publisher on May 1, 1917, with three co-owners: his son, Norman D. Black; newspaperman Holder Doran "Happy" Paulson; and James E. Rockwell.

Under Black's leadership, the Fargo Forum prospered and took a more moderate and thoughtful approach to Fargo and North Dakota boosterism than did the often-outspoken Edwards. Respect for the paper soon increased throughout the state. A few weeks after the 66-year-old Black died on January 8, 1931, his son Norman D. Black became publisher of the Fargo Forum, which was flourishing though still deeply in debt from its new building and the Depression. The paper grew and continued to prosper under his leadership. On August 15, 1944, Jenny C. Black announced a new publisher: Norman D. Black, Jr., who served until his death on September 25, 1969.

The Forum has been first witness and reporter of the region's history. Along with the floods, fires, and blizzards, the Forum is also there for the growth, the entertainment, and, of course, presidential visits. One such visit, though after his time in the White House, was by Theodore Roosevelt. The headlines of the September 5, 1910, Forum read, "Thirty Thousand N. Dakotans Greet Teddy With Wild Enthusiasm; Ringing Address to Labor – Spoke Hour at Cornerstone Laying." The groundbreaking ceremony was for the new Carnegie Library at the short-lived Fargo College. Roosevelt spoke of his time spent hunting and ranching in the state some 30 years earlier, and the newspaper reported "That had it not been for his experience in North Dakota he would never have been President."

The paper's name was changed to the Forum on April 1, 1966. Following Norman D. Black, Jr.’s death in 1969, his 33-year-old son-in-law, William C. Marcil, served as publisher until his son, William Marcil, Jr., succeeded him in 2010. The Forum continues today and is the largest circulating newspaper in the state.