Mark Peihl, Clay County’s premier historian, has retired from the Historical and Cultural Society archives after almost 40 years. (Photo/Nancy Hanson.)

Nancy Edmonds Hanson

Clay County historian Mark Peihl left the windowless basement archives in the Hjemkomst Center last week – an historic occasion for him. and for the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County.
The soft-spoken, pony-tailed Peihl has been an important part of the county’s program to build appreciation of its past since he walked in the door of the old Great Northern Depot downtown to volunteer his time almost 40 years ago. He joined the handful of staffers full-time in January 1986, on the brink of the society’s move to the brand-new Hjemkomst Center. He has been there ever since.
Since then, he has earned a reputation as perhaps the county’s preeminent historian – an expert, it seems, on everything from ox carts and flintlock muskets to building railroads and the finagling that surrounded Moorhead’s long-drawn-out engagement with urban renewal.
“I’ve been here a long time,” he says modestly, brushing off the accolades his expertise has earned him. “I just absorbed it all. I’ve worked on so many exhibits and researched so many stories for our newsletters that I’ve picked up a lot of stuff along the way. I’m just interested.” Interested, it seems, in everything.
In the beginning, Mark was part of the team that put together the HCSCC’s very first exhibit on the fourth floor (counted down, not up, from ground level) in the shiny new building with its iconic tented roofline. Working with Pam Burkhart, John Schermeister and Donna McMaster, he helped craft the first exhibit visitors would see when at the grand opening in October. It was a history of Clay County told through its towns – Rollag for education, with its nearby District 3 school; Glyndon for immigration, based on the Northern Pacific’s “reception houses” to house newcomers; Ulen for newspapers, built around the pioneering weekly Ulen Union.
He gravitated toward the sizable collection of documents – newspapers, city council minutes, deed books and other paper artifacts – where he’d cataloged pioneer photos as a volunteer. “I gave myself the title of archivist,” he confides. “The old Great Northern Depot had been totally inadequate for preserving them … for preserving all of our collections. The building shook every time a train went by.” (After the move, the society found it couldn’t pass on its old quarters to another nonprofit. The air was full of friable asbestos, too expensive to be removed.)
Mark had had no training in preserving documents during his history studies at the University of North Dakota. “None of us had any training,” he remembers. “I tried to educate myself as best I could.” He devoured every book in the North Dakota State University library that addressed archival theory and practice as well as photographic preservation. “Now they have a public history program,” he adds. “There were no such things back in the day.”
Even the historical society’s current storage, while far better, is somewhat less than optimal for preserving history’s treasures. “We have as much climate control as we can manager for all our stuff,” he points out. “Cool and dry is optimum for these archives, while Lisa Veda’s artifacts do best with more humidity. We compromise.”
Mark can measure off the years of his career along two pathways. One is the research he has performed; the other, the ways in which he has shared his enthusiasm and discoveries with the public.
That research has been used to communicate in writing, most of it for the HCSCC’s quarterly newsletter The Hourglass. Readers can find all of them, starting with the first in May 1988, online at www.hcscconline.org/newsletters.html. Asked about his prolific writing, the historian quotes author Barbara Tuchman: “Research is endlessly fascinating. Writing is just hard work.”
The other platform for sharing the county’s stories has been in front of audiences. Mark, a naturally quiet man, says he has always found it easy to share Clay County tales with any audience who asks him: “Get two or three people together, and I’ll come speak.”
His first presentation, he remembers, was to take place in a tiny room deep in the Hjemkomst Center. A reporter wrote about the upcoming date. To Mark’s amazement, he was greeted by 35 or 40 avid listeners. “We had to move to the auditorium upstairs,” he remembers. “More people read the newspaper than I thought.”
That program was on the Stockwood Fill, the Northern Pacific’s notorious attempt to build a seven-mile earthen embankment and trestle to ease the steep grade between Glyndon and Hawley. In 1906 engineers began hauling in more than 2 million board-feet of lumber and millions of cubic yards of fill, only to watch it sink into the quicksand, gravel and clay of the unstable ancient lakebed. The attempt to build a 3,000-foot failed. The project was abandoned; additional locomotives were required to assist eastbound trains out of the valley until the arrival of more powerful engines in the 1930s.
That first presentation was in 1989. It was also Mark’s last in his official capacity, given a final time at the library on Feb. 22.
In the meantime, his menu of programs grew to a dozen topics, by now familiar to service clubs, church groups and avid classrooms across the county. He has introduced tens of thousands to German POW camps, the steamboat industry, F-M street cars, the 1897 flood, the photos of Ole Flaten and S.P. Wang, “Beerhead” (the city’s beer-drenched beginnings), the local brick industry, Red River carts and trails, and the history that occurred over 150 years along the route now known as Highway 10.
His favorite audience of all, he says, has been classrooms full of fourth graders. “They’re like little sponges,” he suggests with a smile. “They soak up everything.” He has told hundreds the story of the fur trade in the Red River Valley, passing around beaver pelts, buffalo hides and a trap from the 1800s that he sets off with a satisfying snap. “When I talked about buffalo hunts, I’d bring along a flintlock musket to show them,” he says, adding, “I always had to call the principal for permission first.”
What does a retired historian intend to do, now that his office days are over? “I’m going to sleep late and take my wife Gloria out for breakfast at the Village Inn,” he predicted on the eve of his last day. “Then I intend to keep my hand in with research and perhaps some writing.” He intends to dig in a bit on the west side of the Red River, following up on a passing reference to a gold rush in the Lisbon area during the 1880s.
And what else? That’s an open question. “There are all sorts of things out there that interest me.” he hints.
Looking back, he refers to his tenure in pursuit of history “a good time.” He has one hope for the contributions he has made by filling out the nooks and crannies of Clay County’s story: “Hopefully, people do understand that we have plenty of history here in Clay County … and that it is endlessly interesting.”