A great sheet of ice slowly moving down from the northern regions crushed down and leveled off the territory now known as the Red River Valley of North Dakota and Minnesota during the Ice Age. It was followed by an immense lake which left deep deposits of silt, animal and vegetable fertilizer which now makes this region some of the finest farming country in the world.

Later Indians came to populate the district, among them the Sioux. They were hunters and trappers. The lure of the great profits, as well as the call of adventure, brought white men as traders. The first white men to visit the area were two missionaries, Father Raynboult and Father Joques, priests from Quebec, in 1641. They later formed the Hudson Bay Company and the Northern Fur Company.

New Horizons beckoned the early pioneers in the late 1800€™s, who headed west. They shared a common goal - a fresh start for themselves and their families on a new frontier. They knew of the dangers they faced along the way, but this could not deter them.

They set a goal and set out to reach it.

In the summer of 1880 Mr. Sanford Small, later vice president of the Red River Land Company, made a trip into what is now Steele County and through his recommendation, in October they purchased 50,000 acres of land in the area from the Northern Pacific Railway for $1.00 per acre.

In a very short time many Eastern capitalists joined the Red River Land Company and in order to boom the sale of their land, they started an intensive scheme of advertising to sell the land (the newspaper became known as the Hope Pioneer) in April of 1882.

Not many pioneers had come to this area between 1880-1882, as the means of transportation was a hindrance across the prairies to this area. A few men did come to stake out a homestead but did not want to spend the winter here and returned East. Some of the possible ways to acquire a piece of land was to take a homestead, tree claim, or pre-emption.

Source: Hope Through the Century - Hope, North Dakota 1882 - 1982 Page 11