Pollock was founded in 1901 as the end point of Soo Line rail service from Wishek, ND, and was named in honor of R.Y. Pollock, a pioneer lay minister and respected citizen of the area. After the Flood Control Act of 1944, residents understood that construction of Oahe Dam would inundate their town of fewer than 500 people. At a Jan. 27, 1953 public meeting, they unanimously decided to relocate the community, then voted on direction, with south receiving the strongest support and later winning 167 votes before a unanimous final vote selected the southern site for new Pollock. Community leaders formed the nonprofit Pollock Development Corporation to acquire a site one mile south of old Pollock and subdivide it, and after residents studied the new plat, inspected the land, and chose preferred lots, envelopes naming those choices were drawn on May 26, 1955, with duplicate claims settled by coin tosses and some later trading among neighbors. E.L. MacKay, through his local newspaper, chronicled the move and helped build support, and in 1956 the Corps of Engineers agreed to make the north crossing into a dam, creating the small Lake Pocasse, which would not fluctuate with the rise and fall of Lake Oahe and beneath which the old town site now rests. By the spring of 1962, the people of Pollock had completely moved, the old town had been leveled, and Lake Pocasse was nearly full. In August of 1961, Wilmer Kirschenmann submitted the name Pocasse for the new lake, honoring an Arikara chief whom Lewis and Clark met in the area in 1804, and the name was chosen from more than 400 entries.