Thompson, ND

At the 2020 census, Thompson was a Grand Forks County city of 1,101 people on the border of Allendale and Walle townships. It was founded in 1881 as a place for businessmen supplying new settlers, first called Norton because the first buildings stood beside George Norton's land. The railroad made that name awkward because a nearby Minnesota town already had it, so postmaster Albert Thompson's name took over.

Thompson is small enough that the rails still set the pace. BNSF tracks and Amtrak's Empire Builder pass through without stopping; the nearest passenger station is in Grand Forks, fourteen miles north. Thompson Public School District 61 gives the city its own daily center, while the Greater Grand Forks metro sits close enough to shape work, shopping, and school connections. The town's name is practical, but the story is not. Thompson is a railroad-born town whose name changed for a practical reason and whose main route still runs straight through the middle of it.