Underwood, North Dakota

Underwood, North Dakota was platted in nineteen oh three in McLean County, named for Fred Underwood, a Soo Line railroad executive. The Soo Line Railroad made the community viable, shipping coal as well as grain from the surrounding prairie. McLean County sits atop lignite coal seams that powered the region's homes and industries through the early twentieth century, and Underwood was one of the loading points.

The town never grew large, but it has outlasted many of the surrounding homestead settlements that vanished when dry years or market crashes drove families out. It remains a working agricultural community with about eight hundred residents.