We all know that Fargo has always been a growing community. When the railroad reached Fargo in June 1872, our state’s largest city really started to expand.
Six years before that, the territorial Legislature enacted a law that allowed for immediate divorce. In other words, a couple not getting along, could arrive in Fargo, walk into a law office and 10 minutes later, be divorced. The thinking was those who were in bad relationships could come to a growing Fargo and start a new life. This became known as the 10-minute divorce.
But by 1877, pressure on the territorial Legislature forced a change that lengthened residency requirements to three months. Still, loopholes were found and Fargo became known as the divorce capital of the nation.
Unhappy married couples would arrive in Fargo on the noon train, check into a hotel, then leave on the afternoon train. Thus, while they continued to pay the hotel fee and show receipts up to three months, they were considered residents of Fargo and could thus divorce without question.
The kicker was they didn’t even have to be U.S. citizens. So German or Norwegian immigrants were allowed to divorce in a court of law which for a number of years was legally binding.
Apparently, a lot of unhappy wealthy couples from across the nation and parts of Europe got news of “the divorce capital of the nation,” and began flocking to Fargo to set up de-facto residences so they could divorce in three months.
When Dakota Territory became North and South Dakota in November 1889, both states inherited this odd law and seeing the “economic” success Fargo was having with this, Sioux Falls and Yankton promoted the three-month residency requirement for a lawful divorce.
The economic impact of the divorce capital was based on the number of lawyers collecting fees for filing divorces, the number of hotels and restaurants that sprang up to accommodate an influx of new people and the railroad for transporting said people to Fargo.
Like a chapter out of the old west, citizens of North Dakota in the 1890s started getting concerned about the unusual reputation Fargo was getting from around the nation. And despite, money flowing into Fargo like molasses on a hot, July day, there were residents of Fargo who had a strong disdain for what was happening.
By 1899, Bishop John Stanley headed a reform movement that landed in the state Legislature. That year, North Dakota lost its reputation as “divorce mill” when Gov. Fred Fancher signed a bill into law requiring a divorce petitioner for divorce to have lived in the state for at least one year and be a U.S. citizen.
The impact quickly began to fade and by 1910, Fargo was just another growing community on the northern Great Plains. Some lawyers stayed to practice other forms of law and some of the hotels and restaurants disappeared, but many did stay as Fargo’s growth continued even without the crutch of lax divorce law.
Since the 1940s, Las Vegas has been known as the divorce capital. Most of us know that Nevada has some of the most lenient laws regarding marriage and divorce in the country. It’s legal across Nevada, but because Las Vegas is home to legal gambling, people are drawn there to get married or divorced.
But Fargo had that dubious distinction at least 74 years before Las Vegas would “steal” that title away from our state’s largest city.
Fargo’s divorce laws were so well known, at least back then, that a Minor League baseball team that played in Fargo in the 1920s was called the Fargo Divorcees. And across the Red River in Moorhead, the baseball team was known as the Moorhead Barmaids.
