Hillsboro: Comstock to County Seat

Hillsboro, the county seat of Traill County, started life in eighteen eighty under the name Comstock. The railroad arrived the same year, and settlers quickly realized the name was a problem: there was already a Hill City elsewhere in Dakota Territory, and postal confusion threatened. The town rebranded as Hillsboro in eighteen eighty-three.

The surrounding Red River Valley was bonanza farm country. The Grandin Brothers of Pennsylvania alone ran enormous wheat operations here at industrial scale.

Hillsboro won its county-seat competition with Caledonia in a vote that drew heavy turnout, and its courthouse, built in nineteen oh five, still stands on the National Register of Historic Places.