In the late winter of 1871, 22-year-old John Bergquist, a native of Sweden, was one of very few settlers living in this area. Drawn to the Minnesota frontier by the Homestead Act and its promise of 160 acres of free land to those willing to settle the West, he claimed his homestead on this bend of the Red River, spent three months building a cabin, and began farming that spring. That fall, the Northern Pacific Railway reached the Red River one mile south of the house, and Moorhead and Fargo were created at the crossing of the railroad and the river. As the two cities grew rapidly, Bergquist established a brickyard a few blocks east of here and for the next several years made millions of bricks from clay deposits just underneath the soil. His fortunes rose and fell over the years, but his homestead, as well as his bricks, literally provided the foundation of Moorhead.