McKenzie County Farmer - Latest News

Travis Bateman
Farmer Staff Writer

Two hundred fifty years ago, representatives of thirteen colonies gathered in Philadelphia and approved a document that would forever change the course of world history. On July 4, 1776, the adoption of the Declaration of Independence announced to the world that the American colonies intended to govern themselves and establish a nation founded upon the principles of liberty, representative government, and individual rights. Those ideals have since been tested through war, political disagreement, economic hardship, social change, and national triumphs, yet they continue to shape the United States today.

As Americans commemorated the nation’s 250th anniversary this past Saturday, the story extends far beyond the original colonies. It reaches across the Great Plains to western North Dakota, where the rugged landscape of McKenzie County reflects many of the same qualities that defined the early Republic: determination, independence, resilience, sacrifice, and optimism for future generations.

The American story is not without hardship or controversy. It includes periods of remarkable progress alongside moments of conflict, injustice, and difficult lessons. A complete understanding of history acknowledges both achievements and failures while recognizing that each generation has inherited the responsibility to strengthen the nation for those who follow.
Long before the first American flag flew over the northern plains, the region that would become McKenzie County was home to Native peoples whose cultures, traditions, and stewardship of the land stretched back thousands of years. Their history remains an essential chapter of both North Dakota’s and America’s story.

The arrival of European explorers, fur traders, and military expeditions gradually transformed the northern plains during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The nearby Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site became one of the most significant fur trading posts on the upper Missouri River, bringing together Native nations, traders, and settlers in an exchange that shaped the developing American frontier.

Following the Louisiana Purchase and the westward expansion that followed, settlement slowly increased throughout Dakota Territory. Railroads, agriculture, ranching, and frontier communities gradually emerged across western North Dakota, laying the foundation for future counties and towns.

One individual would forever connect western North Dakota with the American presidency and conservation movement.

In 1883, a young Theodore Roosevelt first arrived in the Little Missouri Badlands seeking adventure and buffalo hunting. Instead, he discovered a landscape that would profoundly influence his life. Following the tragic deaths of both his wife and mother in 1884, Roosevelt returned to the Badlands, where ranching, hardship, and life on the frontier reshaped his outlook on leadership, perseverance, and conservation. Years later he famously remarked that he “would not have been President had it not been for my experiences in (North) Dakota.”
Today, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, including its North Unit within McKenzie County, serves as both a reminder of Roosevelt’s legacy and one of America’s most treasured public landscapes. The surrounding public lands-including the Dakota Prairie Grasslands-continue to offer opportunities for hiking, camping, hunting, fishing, mountain bike and horseback riding, wildlife viewing, and exploring the same rugged country that inspired one of America’s most influential presidents.

McKenzie County itself officially organized in 1905, although settlement had already begun years earlier. Homesteaders arrived under the Homestead Act seeking opportunity, often living in sod houses or modest wooden structures while enduring harsh winters, prairie fires, drought, isolation, and uncertain harvests. Their success required extraordinary determination, with many families spending years improving the land before earning ownership of their farms.

Many of those settlers came from Norway, Sweden, Germany, Russia, Holland, and other European countries. Together they established churches, schools, townships, and communities whose names remain familiar across the county today.

Alexander became the county’s first seat before government moved to Schafer in 1907 and ultimately to Watford City in 1941. Alongside these communities, settlements such as Arnegard, Cartwright, Charbonneau, Charlson, Croff, Dore, East Fairview, Four Bears, Grassy Butte, Hawkeye, Homesteader’s Gap, Keene, Mandaree, Tobacco Gardens, and numerous rural townships helped define the county’s agricultural identity during the first half of the twentieth century.

Life across McKenzie County was never easy.
Families survived blizzards, grasshopper infestations, drought, economic depression, and two World Wars while continuing to build schools, churches, businesses, and local government. Military service became a tradition for countless local families, with residents serving during World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Iraq, Afghanistan, and numerous other conflicts. Their service reflected the broader American commitment to defending the freedoms first declared in 1776.

Agriculture remained the backbone of the county for generations. Wheat, cattle, hay production, and family ranches shaped both the local economy and community identity. Yet beneath the prairie lay another resource that would eventually transform western North Dakota.

Oil had been discovered decades earlier, but advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing during the late 2000s and early 2010s unlocked the immense potential of the Bakken Formation. What followed became one of the largest energy booms in American history.

Virtually overnight, McKenzie County became one of the nation’s fastest-growing counties. Thousands of workers from every region of the United States - and many countries around the world - arrived seeking opportunity. Housing developments replaced open prairie, new businesses appeared, schools expanded, roads were widened and paved, and local governments faced unprecedented demands for infrastructure, emergency services, healthcare, and public safety. Between 2010 and 2020, McKenzie County recorded the highest percentage population growth of any county in the United States.

That rapid transformation brought both opportunity and challenge.
Economic prosperity supported new careers, increased tax revenues, expanded schools, improved healthcare facilities, and investments in roads, recreation, and public services. At the same time, communities faced higher housing costs, traffic congestion, demands on emergency responders, strains on infrastructure, and the social adjustments that accompany rapid population growth.

Today, McKenzie County represents a blend of longtime ranching families, multigenerational agricultural producers, Native communities, and a melting pot of ethnic backgrounds with a global presence that now make up our energy professionals, entrepreneurs, healthcare workers, educators, first responders, veterans, and many newcomers who have chosen to make western North Dakota their home.

The county’s landscape also reflects this balance.
The waters of Lake Sakakawea, created by the construction of Garrison Dam, dramatically altered portions of the Missouri River Valley and displaced Native communities and historic settlements. That history remains an important part of North Dakota’s story. Today, the lake has also become one of the state’s premier destinations for boating, fishing, camping, wildlife observation, and outdoor recreation, attracting visitors from across the country.
Throughout McKenzie County, America’s story continues to unfold in places both large and small.

Children still attend Fourth of July parades carrying American flags. Veterans gather to honor fallen service members. Ranchers continue working land settled generations ago. Oil and gas workers power the majority of the local economy and help fuel the nation’s economy. Conservation efforts protect landscapes that inspired Theodore Roosevelt. Hunters, anglers, hikers, and outdoor enthusiasts continue exploring public lands much as earlier generations explored the frontier.

As the United States marks its 250th anniversary, McKenzie County offers a reminder that American history is not confined to famous battlefields or monuments along the East Coast. It is equally present in prairie homesteads, Badlands ranches, tribal communities, the county courthouse, volunteer fire stations, schools, churches, and small-town main streets.
The American experiment has endured because every generation has contributed something tangible of its own.

From the founders who declared independence in 1776, to the pioneers who broke prairie sod in the late 1800s and into the early 1900s, to today’s residents building careers in agriculture, energy, healthcare, education, conservation, and public service, each has added another chapter to a continuing local and national story.

After 250 years, America remains a nation still being written.
And here among the buttes, rivers, grasslands, and wide-open skies of McKenzie County, that story continues to be written every day.