After the plug is pulled: the fall & rise of Fortuna ND
Like many towns in the Great Plains, Fortuna was a creation of the railroad. Their PR campaign in the early 1900’s promised that prosperity could be found along the tracks. Mostly Norwegians bought into the idea and came to this remote corner of North Dakota to grow drought-tolerant durum wheat, raise beef cattle and mine a bit of low quality lignite coal. Being a fairly stubborn lot by nature, these folks toughed it out through brutally cold winters and summers without rain in isolation for forty years. Then the Air Force showed up to inject government money into the local economy.
