NEWS from the NDSU Institute for Regional Studies
Valley City Historic Structures Survey
Tom Isern, Project Leader
Minard Hall 412C, NDSU, Fargo ND 58105-5075
Tel 231-8339, Fax 231-1047, E-mail isern@plains.nodak.edu
WWW site at http://www.plainsfolk.com/vcsurvey
DATE: 18 May 1999
RE: Historic Structures Survey Commences in Valley City
Field work and archival research on the Valley City Historic Structures Survey have begun, according to announcement from the Institute for Regional Studies, North Dakota State University.
The Historic Structures Survey is an organized effort to photograph and document all historic (40 years old and older) buildings or structures lying within the 100-year flood plain of Valley City. The survey fulfills requirements of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the State Historical Society of North Dakota pursuant to flood mitigation funds that were granted to the city in past years.
The city has contracted with the NDSU Institute for Regional Studies to conduct the survey. Staff members will be photographing buildings and gathering information during summer 1999. Survey staff includes:
Plains Folk column, NDSU Extension release, 27 May 1999
Copyright 1999 Plains Folk
It is not a river of violent adjectives. People do not speak of the "mighty Sheyenne," the "raging Sheyenne," or the "wild Sheyenne."
Its origins are not a tumbling cataract in some high fastness. Rather in its upper reaches, Sheridan and Wells counties, it is easily mistaken for a swollen slough. At the other end the Sheyenne used to have great fun with the Packers of West Fargo, but since construction of the floodway, it lies sedated in a brushy bed. In between the river makes its big fishhook bend, looping way down to southern Ransom County before plotting a northeasterly course to junction with the Red.
Strike the Sheyenne at the right place and it defines the word "picturesque." The Highway 200 cut to the river crossing east of Cooperstown is a sublime descent and ascent. The scenic byway along the Fort Ransom stretch, an attempt to chart a tourist corridor through a historic locality, is a leafy respite for plains travelers. The sandy passage through the Sheyenne National Grassland offers float trippers serenity and colonies of bank swallows.
The river gives up plenty of fish along with the scenery. We've caught tubs of channel cat from the lower reaches, although our favorite fishing bridge was a casualty of the high water of 1997. Snaky Lake Ashtabula, behind the relatively venerable Baldhill Dam authorized by Congress in 1936, is a fish mine.
The Sheyenne River does have the power to shape lives, however, and nowhere more so than in Valley City. With its famous Hi-Line railroad bridge, its pleasing rainbow arch on Main, and its pretty footbridge leading to the Valley City State University campus, Valley styles itself the "City of Bridges." The city park in the hairpin bend of the river adjacent to downtown is one prominent public riverside area; Chautauqua Park, which occupies a larger bend with the Hi-Line looming above, is a little-known jewel. Overall, as the city's name indicates, the river defines the sense of place in Valley.
The Sheyenne affects Valley life in more concrete ways also. The 100-year flood plain encompasses Chautauqua Park, bounds the stylish residential areas up Chautauqua Boulevard, balloons to encompass the working-class neighborhoods of the eastern blocks of the city, and spans the business and college districts, the axes of the city.
Within this low-lying swath the river alternately attracts and rebuffs residents. Developers fulfilled designs in its banks. People like living along the river, where their kids can catch bullheads and feed the goslings. On the other hand, recurrent flooding drives them back. Sometimes with federal help, as was the case earlier this decade, when FEMA funding assisted with relocation of many households, in some cases erasing whole little neighborhoods.
It is this circumstance, rather than the pleasures of the Broken Spoke and the Budget Burger, that keeps me coming back to Valley City. I'm leading a team of researchers who are surveying the historic buildings (any structures more than 40 years old) throughout the flood plain. This means we are taking photographs of the buildings, recording descriptions of them, asking fool questions of residents about their history, and doing background research on them. (The collections of the Barnes County Historical Museum are a great resource.) We're doing this work under contract for the city of Valley City.
The result will be a great catalog of the historic buildings, of course, but also, we hope, a certain broader understanding of the historic context of development and retreat along the river in Valley. Our study is a snapshot–one still image of what we know is a long and shifting process of riverside life.
