Grand Forks Herald Loses Its Archives In Fire

GRAND FORKS, N.D. - Grand Forks lost its memory Saturday.

When fire gutted the Grand Forks Herald building Saturday afternoon, it took with it the newspaper's archives, the file cabinets that held much of the river town's history in brittle clippings and yellowed photos that took decades to collect.

Now, the records of births and of deaths, of political victories and defeats, of prior floods, are ashes.

"It makes me feel like I want to cry," said Jenelle Stadstad, manager of the newspaper's library.

Even after the dikes around downtown broke, Stadstad said, she wasn't worried. The files of photographs and clippings were on the second floor of the building and were safe from high water.

But when word came that a fire at the nearby Security Building had spread down the block to the Herald's newsroom and offices, her worst fears were realized.

"I can't even imagine all of the files we lost," she said yesterday from Manvel Public School in Manvel, N.D., where the newspaper staff continues to produce the paper. "Our microfilm went back to 1879, our first paper."

Stadstad and other newspaper staffers have begun to plan ways to rebuild what the water and fire have claimed.

"I care less about my house than I do about those archives," Stadstad said.