Best Web Design in Moorhead, MN (2026)

Web Design for Moorhead, Minnesota

Moorhead sits on the east bank of the Red River of the North in the fertile Red River Valley, forming the Minnesota half of the Fargo-Moorhead metro alongside Fargo, North Dakota. Founded as a Northern Pacific Railway town in 1871, it is a college town and sugar-beet capital with strong Scandinavian roots, celebrated by a full-scale Viking ship and Norwegian stave church. Its quirks range from a rebel Dairy Queen to a brush with rock-and-roll history.

AppWT works with Moorhead, MN businesses from Livonia, Michigan, mostly online and travelling as needed.

About Moorhead

Also known as. Your Hometown (city motto). part of Fargo-Moorhead / 'F-M'.

History. Platted in 1871 and named for William Galloway Moorhead, a Northern Pacific Railway official and brother-in-law of financier Jay Cooke, after the railroad chose the site to cross the Red River. Incorporated as a village on February 25, 1875, and as a city on February 24, 1881. Clay County, which surrounds the city, was created in 1860 as Breckinridge County and renamed for statesman Henry Clay in 1862. The former Moorhead Armory was the intended February 3, 1959 concert destination of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper; their plane crashed en route, the event later memorialized as 'the day the music died' (the surviving show went on in Moorhead, launching a young Bobby Vee). Randolph Probstfield established his farm north of town in 1868; its house is considered the oldest standing home in the Red River Valley.

Local economy. Located in the intensively farmed Red River Valley, Moorhead is a hub of Minnesota's sugar-beet industry. American Crystal Sugar Company, the largest beet-sugar producer in the U.S., is headquartered in Moorhead and runs a beet-processing plant there. Other major manufacturers include Busch Agricultural Resources (malt) and Pactiv (containers). Higher education is a leading employer and identity: Concordia College, Minnesota State University Moorhead, Minnesota State Community and Technical College, and Rasmussen University together enroll roughly 14,000 students.

Culture and community. The Hjemkomst Center houses a full-scale Viking ship replica built by Moorhead's Robert Asp and sailed by his children from Duluth to Oslo, Norway, in 1982 after his death. The Scandinavian Hjemkomst Festival each June celebrates Nordic heritage; German (about 34%) and Norwegian (about 25%) ancestries dominate the population. Concordia College sponsors the renowned Concordia Language Villages, immersion summer camps teaching 14-plus languages to more than 13,000 youth a year. Moorhead is home to a notable Kurdish community of roughly 3,500 residents, adding to the city's diversity.

What makes Moorhead distinct. The Moorhead Dairy Queen was the first DQ to sell the Dilly Bar and operates under a rare 1949 contract that lets it sell treats never approved by DQ corporate. The Red River of the North flows north (toward Canada), and its spring flooding regularly threatens Moorhead and Fargo. The city's near-miss with the 1959 Buddy Holly crash ties it permanently to 'the day the music died.'

Moorhead Landmarks and Local Life

• Hjemkomst Center - the riverfront museum housing the Viking ship and a full-scale replica of Norway's Hopperstad Stave Church
• Comstock House - an 1883 Queen Anne/Eastlake mansion and historic house museum
• Rourke Art Museum - housed in the historic former Moorhead post office
• Bluestem Amphitheater - a 3,000-seat outdoor concert venue that opened in 2009
• Probstfield Farm - an 1868 living-history farm with the valley's oldest home
• The 'World's Largest Dilly Bar,' a 12-foot roadside statue at the Moorhead Dairy Queen.