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O.J. Hagen’s parents were Jens H. Hagen (1828-1914) and Gunhild Grendahl. They were married in Norway on November 5, 1855. Jens Hagen immigrated to the United States in 1869 and was followed by his wife and family in 1871. They first settled in Menominee, Wisconsin, where Olaf Jenson Hagen was born on September 16, 1872. In May 1873 the family moved to the Red River Valley, settling near Fort Abercrombie in Richland County, Dakota Territory.

In April 1997, the Red River of the North, which marks the border between North Dakota and Minnesota, flooded. The immediate effects of the flooding were well covered by the local and national media. But the long-term difficulties of rebuilding homes, businesses, and lives after the flood receded are less well known. People who live in the Red River Valley have struggled with the challenges of flood recovery, with problems rebuilding their homes, their businesses, and their sense of security.

Born in Crookston, Polk County, Minnesota in 1903, George Hagen attended St. Olaf College and studied law at Georgetown University before becoming a member of the Minnesota Bar. He also spent fourteen months as an FBI agent in Washington D.C. Hagen served in several public offices during his career, including Polk County Attorney, six years in the Minnesota House of Representatives, and many years as District Judge in Polk County.

Harry Basford was born at Deer River, Minnesota on May 21, 1908. He married Emma Miler on June 19, 1937. His education included grade and high school and two years of University training. He attended night school for over four years. He moved to the Wolf Lake, Minnesota area in 1941 where he operated a dairy farm.

Frank DeGroat (1916-1989) served in the Minnesota House of Representatives from 1962-1976, the year he retired from office. He served in District 10A which occupies Becker, and parts of Otter Tail and Wadena Counties. In addition to holding public office, Frank was a dairy and grain farmer residing in the rural Lake Park, Minnesota area.

George O. Swenson was born in 1898 in Maxwell Township, Minnesota. His parents moved to a different farm in Boyd, Minnesota when he was four, and he grew up on this second farm, graduating from Dawson High School in 1917.

Gladys Westrum lived in Moorhead, Minnesota when this collection was received. The collection contains some of her personal reminiscences.

Gust Knudson was a farmer in the area of Dazey, North Dakota. Very little is known about him beyond his obvious interest in land purchases and investments.

The First Congregational Church of Detroit Lakes, Minnesota was organized in 1872 by the Reverend Hiram N. Gates. Gates was the minister of the Congregational Church in Connecticut when he received a commission from the American Home Missionary Society to establish Congregational churches in settlements along the newly constructed line of the Northern Pacific Railroad in northwestern Minnesota. Before leaving the East, Gates met Colonel George H. Johnston, who, as president of the New England Military and Naval Bureau of Migration, was in the process of establishing a colony at Detroit on lands purchased from the Northern Pacific Railroad Company (the name of the town that was to Detroit Lakes in 1926). Many of the original settlers of the “New England Colony” were Congregationalists, and Johnston convinced Gates to settle there.

Materials collected by Dr. Margaret Reed of the Moorhead State University Department of Social Work, between 1965 and 1982, for a planned history of social service agencies (never written). Dr. Reed served on the boards of many such agencies in Fargo-Moorhead [North Dakota-Minnesota] during this period.