Best Web Design in Fargo, ND (2026)

Web Design for Fargo, North Dakota

Fargo is North Dakota's largest city, born as a Northern Pacific Railway town on the Red River and named for Wells Fargo co-founder William Fargo. Once an agricultural and 1880s divorce hub, it has reinvented itself around healthcare, food processing, education and a growing tech scene that earned it the "Silicon Prairie" tag. It is proud of homegrown Yankee slugger Roger Maris and forever tied, however loosely, to the Coen brothers' 1996 film that borrowed its name.

AppWT works with Fargo, ND businesses from Livonia, Michigan, mostly online and travelling as needed.

About Fargo

Also known as. Gateway to the West. Silicon Prairie. Divorce Capital of the Midwest (a historic 1880s label).

History. Fargo was founded in 1871 on the Red River floodplain, originally called Centralia before being renamed for Wells Fargo and Northern Pacific director William Fargo. In the 1880s Fargo became known as the "divorce capital" of the Midwest because of unusually lenient divorce laws. A major fire on June 7, 1893 destroyed 31 downtown blocks; the city rebuilt with brick within a year, adding more than 246 new buildings. Theodore Roosevelt visited in 1910 to lay a college library cornerstone and addressed a crowd of about 30,000. A devastating F5 tornado struck the north end in 1957; researcher Ted Fujita's study of it helped him develop the tornado-intensity terminology later formalized as the Fujita scale. In 2009 the Red River crested at a record 40.84 feet, but the city's flood defenses held.

Local economy. Sanford Health is the dominant employer, with roughly 9,000 workers in the area. North Dakota State University and Fargo Public Schools are among the top employers. Historically agricultural, the economy now centers on healthcare, education, food processing, manufacturing, technology and retail. The tech sector's growth, including a large Microsoft campus in the metro, underpins the "Silicon Prairie" nickname. The Fargo metro's GDP reached about $18.8 billion in 2022.

Culture and community. North Dakota State University's Bison have been an FCS football dynasty, winning multiple national championships in the 2010s. The Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks play independent professional baseball, and the Fargo Force compete in the USHL. The Downtown Fargo Street Fair is billed as North Dakota's largest free outdoor gathering, and the Winter Carnival dates to 1928. The restored 1926 Art Deco Fargo Theatre is a downtown cultural anchor. Regional comfort food, especially hotdish and other Upper Midwest fare, defines the local table.

What makes Fargo distinct. Almost none of the Coen brothers' Oscar-winning 1996 film "Fargo" was shot in Fargo; the city appears only briefly, yet the movie's woodchipper prop, signed by the Coens, is displayed at the local visitor center with a fake leg protruding. Baseball star Roger Maris grew up in Fargo and personally insisted his museum stay free to the public. Fargo sits on structurally weak soils left by ancient glacial Lake Agassiz, which limits how tall buildings can be built. The 1957 Fargo tornado directly influenced meteorologist Ted Fujita's damage-scale terminology.

Fargo Landmarks and Local Life

• Fargo Theatre
• Fargodome
• Red River Zoo (with a restored 1928 carousel)
• Plains Art Museum
• Bonanzaville - USA (a recreated 19th-century prairie town)
• Roger Maris Museum at West Acres Mall