Community Description
West Fargo, North Dakota
First off we want to make it perfectly clear that the movie Fargo doesnt give an accurate description of what the people are like here.
Our city of West Fargo, population 15, 400, is right next to Fargo, the largest city in North Dakota. The somewhat smaller city of Moorhead, Minnesota is directly east across the Red River from Fargo. It is typically cold and snowy in the winter and sunny and warm in the summer. It can be 20 degrees F in the winter and 90 degrees F or more in the summer. We have lovely falls and somewhat rainy and muddy springs. We definitely see four distinct seasons here.
Although we have our own library, clinics, fire station, post office, grocery stores and other shops in West Fargo we rely on the larger city of Fargo to provide many of our goods and services. The hospitals and airports are in Fargo. In the past few years Fargo and West Fargo have grown together with only a sign separating the two. In fact many of our students actually live in Fargo. Some of our parents work at jobs in West Fargo while most of the rest work in Fargo.
For fun we like to go roller skating (indoors). We have an ice arena, a bowling alley, and a swimming pool in West Fargo. In the summer many families travel to the lakes area of nearby Minnesota for the weekend where they own lake cabins. In the fall and winter many families attend high school and college sporting events-football, basketball, wrestling, hockey and volleyball. Sledding and snowmobiling are also fun pastimes in the winter.
The land surrounding West Fargo is flat. We live in the Red River valley so the soil is rich and black. Its very good for farming. We see deer, rabbits, ducks, geese and pheasant quite often.
The West Fargo school district consists of a kindergarten center, six elementary schools, a jr. high and a senior high school. Our senior high school is the third largest in the state. Were adding on and remodeling our school so its kind of exciting-but noisy at times! Eastwood is one of the larger elementary schools with 550 students. We have grades 1-6. There are 4 or 5 sections of each grade.
Hopefully, that will give you an idea of what its like where we live. Yes, its cold in the winter but its warm and beautiful in the summer.
Heres the address for our schools web site. You can see a picture of Eastwood School by clicking on District School, then Eastwood Elementary.
http://www.west-fargo.k12.nd.us
If you want to find out more about our city you can go to this web site