2001 Reining, Team Penning Prospect

Prior to settlement by Europeans, the area where the city developed, at the forks of the Red River and Red Lake River, for thousands of years had been an important meeting and trading point for Native Americans. Early French explorers, fur trappers, and traders called the area Les Grandes Fourches, meaning "The Grand Forks". By the 1740s, French fur trappers relied on Les Grandes Fourches as an important trading post. This was French colonial territory. The United States acquired the territory from British Rupert's Land with the Treaty of 1818, but indigenous tribes dominated the area until the late 19th century.