Drayton, North Dakota, From Ontario to the Red River

In the spring of eighteen seventy-eight, a group of families gathered in Drayton, Ontario, Canada and decided to move together to the Dakota Territory. They traveled by rail as far as the tracks ran near Grand Forks, then continued on foot and wagon through the Red River Valley to a bluff overlooking the river. They called the landing Hastings Landing at first, then renamed it Drayton after the Canadian hometown they had left behind.

Over the following years Drayton grew into a steady agricultural center, and it still anchors the northern stretch of Pembina County today.