For a long lifetime, the railroad was the biggest thing in North Dakota — the industry that built the towns, moved the crops, and employed a small army of workers. If your family lived along a rail line, there is a good chance the railroad is part of their story.
The people in this story fill our public-record database. Search a surname and filter to North Dakota.
Search North Dakota records →The lines that built North Dakota
North Dakota’s growth rode the rails. The major lines across the state included the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern. Two transcontinental lines crossed the wheat plains, and towns were platted every few miles as the track advanced.
Railroad towns
Whole towns grew up around the division points, roundhouses, and repair shops — places like Fargo, Bismarck, Grand Forks, and Minot. A railroad job — brakeman, fireman, engineer, section hand, shopman — supported thousands of North Dakota families, and the depot was the center of town life.
The boom era
The great building period ran through the 1870s through the 1890s, when track spread across the state and tied farm and factory to national markets. The railroad decided which towns thrived and which withered, and its coming is written all through the census and land records of the era.
Finding your North Dakota ancestors
- Railroad occupations in the census — brakeman, fireman, engineer, conductor, section hand, shopman — point straight to a rail family.
- Census records (free through 1950) list occupation and residence — placing your family in a specific North Dakota county and town, decade by decade.
- Death & cemetery records — search our North Dakota database for the people in this story and the generations around them.
- The State Historical Society of North Dakota in Bismarck holds the deeper collections — company, church, military, and county records.
- Newspapers on the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America carried the obituaries, accidents, and milestones of these communities.
We work back from you to the ancestor who lived this history — census, vital, church, and cemetery records, written into a book and an interactive family site. Flat rate, no DNA test.
See how it works →Frequently asked questions
Which railroads ran through North Dakota?
The main lines across North Dakota included the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern
How do I find a railroad-worker ancestor in North Dakota?
Look for railroad occupations in the census (brakeman, fireman, engineer, section hand, shopman), then check company and union records and the state historical society’s railroad collections.