Greyhound Lines
Greyhound Lines, Inc. shortened to Greyhound, is an intercity bus common carrier serving over 3,800 destinations across North America. The company's first route began in Hibbing, Minnesota in 1914, the company adopted the Greyhound name in 1929. Since October 2007, Greyhound has been a subsidiary of British transportation company FirstGroup, but continues to be based in Dallas, where it has been headquartered since 1987. Greyhound and its sister companies in FirstGroup America are the largest motorcoach operators in the United States and Canada. Carl Eric Wickman was born in Sweden in 1887. In 1905, he moved to the United States where he worked as a drill operator at a mine in Alice, until he was laid off in 1914; that same year, he became a Hupmobile salesman in Minnesota. Although unsuccessful as a car salesman, Wickman used a 7-passenger car to begin a bus service with Andy "Bus Andy" Anderson and C. A. A. "Arvid" Heed in 1914. The fledgling company transported iron ore miners from Hibbing to Alice at 15 cents a ride.
In 1915, Wickman joined forces with Ralph Bogan, running a similar service from Hibbing to Duluth, Minnesota, to form the Mesaba Transportation Company. The company made $8,000 in profit in its first year. By the end of World War I in 1918, Wickman owned 18 buses and was making an annual profit of $40,000. In 1922, Wickman joined forces with the owner of Superior White Bus Lines. Four years Wickman purchased two West Coast operations, the Pioneer Yelloway System and the Pickwick Lines, creating a national intercity bus company; the Greyhound name had its origins in the inaugural run of a route from Superior, Wisconsin to Wausau, Wisconsin. While passing through a small town, Ed Stone, the route's operator, saw the reflection of his 1920s era bus in a store window; the reflection reminded him of a greyhound dog, he adopted that name for that segment of the Blue Goose Lines. The Greyhound name became popular and applied to the entire bus network. Stone became General Sales Manager of Yellow Truck and Coach, a division of General Motors, which built Greyhound buses.
As president of the company, Wickman continued to expand it so that by 1927, his buses were making transcontinental trips from California to New York. In 1928, Greyhound had a gross annual income of $6 million. In 1929, Greyhound acquired additional interests in the Gray Line and part of the Colonial Motor Coach Company to form Eastern Greyhound Lines. Greyhound acquired an interest in Northland Transportation Company and renamed it Northland Greyhound Lines. By 1930, more than 100 bus lines had been consolidated into what was called the Motor Transit Company. Recognizing the need for a more memorable name, the partners of the Motor Transit Company changed its name to The Greyhound Corporation after the Greyhound name used by earlier bus lines. Wickman's business suffered during the Great Depression, by 1931 was over $1 million in debt; as the 1930s progressed and the economy improved, Greyhound began to prosper again. In 1934, intercity bus lines carried 400,000,000 passengers—nearly as many passengers as the Class I railroads.
The film It Happened One Night — about an heiress traveling by Greyhound bus with a reporter — is credited by the company for spurring bus travel nationwide. In 1935, national intercity bus ridership climbed 50% to 651,999,000 passengers, surpassing the volume of passengers carried by the Class I railroads for the first time. In 1935 Wickman was able to announce record profits of $8 million. In 1936 the largest bus carrier in the United States, Greyhound began taking delivery of 306 new buses. To accommodate the rapid growth in bus travel, Greyhound built many new stations in the period between 1937 and 1945. To unify its brand image, it procured both buses and bus stations in the late Art Deco style known as Streamline Moderne starting in 1937. For terminals, Greyhound retained such architects as W. S. Arrasmith and George D. Brown. Notable examples of Streamline Moderne stations have been preserved in Blytheville, Cleveland, Columbia, South Carolina, Washington, D. C. Greyhound worked with the Yellow Coach Manufacturing Company for its streamlined Series 700 buses, first for Series 719 prototypes in 1934, from 1937 as the exclusive customer for Yellow's Series 743 bus.
Greyhound bought a total of 1,256 buses between 1937 and 1939. By the outbreak of World War II, the company had nearly 10,000 employees. Wickman retired as president of the Greyhound Corporation in 1946 and was replaced by his long-time partner Orville S. Caesar. Wickman died at the age of 66 in 1954. Greyhound commissioned noted industrial designer Raymond Loewy and General Motors to design several distinctive buses from the 1930s through the 1950s. Loewy's first was the GM PD-3751, the Greyhound Silversides produced in 1940 - 1941. 1954 saw the debut of the first of Greyhound's distinctive hump-backed buses. In 1944 Loewy had produced drawings for the GM GX-1, a full double-decker parlor bus with the first prototype built in 1953; the Scenicruiser was designed Loewy and built by General Motors as model PD-4501. The front of the bus was distinctly lower than its rear section. After World War II, the building of the Interstate Highway System beginning in 1956, automobile travel became a preferred mode of travel in the United States.
This, combined with the increasing affordability of air travel, spelled trouble for Greyhound and other intercity bus carriers. In October 1953, Greyhound announced the acquisition of the Tennessee Coach Company's entire operation, the negotiations fo
Detroit
Detroit is the largest and most populous city in the U. S. state of Michigan, the largest United States city on the United States–Canada border, the seat of Wayne County. The municipality of Detroit had a 2017 estimated population of 673,104, making it the 23rd-most populous city in the United States; the metropolitan area, known as Metro Detroit, is home to 4.3 million people, making it the second-largest in the Midwest after the Chicago metropolitan area. Regarded as a major cultural center, Detroit is known for its contributions to music and as a repository for art and design. Detroit is a major port located on the Detroit River, one of the four major straits that connect the Great Lakes system to the Saint Lawrence Seaway; the Detroit Metropolitan Airport is among the most important hubs in the United States. The City of Detroit anchors the second-largest regional economy in the Midwest, behind Chicago and ahead of Minneapolis–Saint Paul, the 13th-largest in the United States. Detroit and its neighboring Canadian city Windsor are connected through a tunnel and the Ambassador Bridge, the busiest international crossing in North America.
Detroit is best known as the center of the U. S. automobile industry, the "Big Three" auto manufacturers General Motors and Chrysler are all headquartered in Metro Detroit. In 1701, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit, the future city of Detroit. During the 19th century, it became an important industrial hub at the center of the Great Lakes region. With expansion of the auto industry in the early 20th century, the city and its suburbs experienced rapid growth, by the 1940s, the city had become the fourth-largest in the country. However, due to industrial restructuring, the loss of jobs in the auto industry, rapid suburbanization, Detroit lost considerable population from the late 20th century to the present. Since reaching a peak of 1.85 million at the 1950 census, Detroit's population has declined by more than 60 percent. In 2013, Detroit became the largest U. S. city to file for bankruptcy, which it exited in December 2014, when the city government regained control of Detroit's finances.
Detroit's diverse culture has had both local and international influence in music, with the city giving rise to the genres of Motown and techno, playing an important role in the development of jazz, hip-hop and punk music. The erstwhile rapid growth of Detroit left a globally unique stock of architectural monuments and historic places, since the 2000s conservation efforts managed to save many architectural pieces and allowed several large-scale revitalizations, including the restoration of several historic theatres and entertainment venues, high-rise renovations, new sports stadiums, a riverfront revitalization project. More the population of Downtown Detroit, Midtown Detroit, various other neighborhoods has increased. An popular tourist destination, Detroit receives 19 million visitors per year. In 2015, Detroit was named a "City of Design" by UNESCO, the first U. S. city to receive that designation. Paleo-Indian people inhabited areas near Detroit as early as 11,000 years ago including the culture referred to as the Mound-builders.
In the 17th century, the region was inhabited by Huron, Odawa and Iroquois peoples. The first Europeans did not penetrate into the region and reach the straits of Detroit until French missionaries and traders worked their way around the League of the Iroquois, with whom they were at war, other Iroquoian tribes in the 1630s; the north side of Lake Erie was held by the Huron and Neutral peoples until the 1650s, when the Iroquois pushed both and the Erie people away from the lake and its beaver-rich feeder streams in the Beaver Wars of 1649–1655. By the 1670s, the war-weakened Iroquois laid claim to as far south as the Ohio River valley in northern Kentucky as hunting grounds, had absorbed many other Iroquoian peoples after defeating them in war. For the next hundred years no British, colonist, or French action was contemplated without consultation with, or consideration of the Iroquois' response; when the French and Indian War evicted the Kingdom of France from Canada, it removed one barrier to British colonists migrating west.
British negotiations with the Iroquois would both prove critical and lead to a Crown policy limiting the west of the Alleghenies settlements below the Great Lakes, which gave many American would-be migrants a casus belli for supporting the American Revolution. The 1778 raids and resultant 1779 decisive Sullivan Expedition reopened the Ohio Country to westward emigration, which began immediately, by 1800 white settlers were pouring westwards; the city was named by French colonists, referring to the Detroit River, linking Lake Huron and Lake Erie. On July 24, 1701, the French explorer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, along with more than a hundred other settlers began constructing a small fort on the north bank of the Detroit River. Cadillac would name the settlement Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit, after Louis Phélypeaux, comte de Pontchartrain, Minister of Marine under Louis XIV. France offered free land to colonists to attract families to Detroit. By 1773, the population of Detroit was 1,400. By 1778, its population was up to 2,144 and it was the third-largest city in the Province of Quebec.
The region's economy was based on the lucrative fur trade, in which nume
Motor Coach Industries
Motor Coach Industries is a brand of motorcoaches manufactured by New Flyer Industries, a North American bus manufacturer based in Canada. The company was incorporated in 1933 as Fort Garry Motor Body and Paint Works Limited, in Winnipeg, Canada by Harry Zoltok. In 1948, Greyhound Lines of Canada, at that time MCI's major customer, became a majority shareholder when it purchased 65% of the company. MCI was purchased outright by Greyhound Lines in 1958. In 1963 a new plant was opened in Pembina, North Dakota to increase capacity as MCI began to expand into the U. S. market, while Greyhound widened its operations and switched from GMC to its own in-house products. In 1974 another plant was opened in Roswell, New Mexico under the title Transportation Manufacturing Corporation. In December 1986, Greyhound was split, with Greyhound Lines being sold to an investor group, Greyhound Lines of Canada, MCI and TMC remaining part of The Greyhound Corporation, renamed Dial, Inc. in 1991. In 1987, Greyhound Corporation bought the transit bus manufacturing operations of General Motors Diesel Division, based in Canada.
MCI took over production of GM's RTS model, transferring production to TMC. MCI purchased the GM bus assembly plant in Saint-Eustache, which produced GM's Canadian transit bus model, the Classic. TMC ceased production of the older MCI vehicles in 1990 to concentrate on manufacturing the RTS, on the "A-Model" intercity coaches. In 1993 MCI became Motor Coach Industries International Inc.. In 1994, MCI stocks were purchased by Mexican DINA S. A. who had a long history of bus building and developed their HTQ proprietary technology that culminated with the creation of the Viaggio Confort Bus Line. Over the course of the next years MCI reproduced its Viaggio 1000 DOT for sale to the U. S and Canada. In late 1999/2000 the G4100, G4500 and F3500 models were released to the U. S. and Canadian markets. Production of the G4500 moved to Winnipeg, after the G4100 had been discontinued. Poor reliability of the G4500 resulted in low sales after Greyhound Lines filed a lawsuit against MCI over the various issues involving the bus.
Greyhound took delivery of few Winnipeg-built G4500s. Related to a major contract cancellation by Western Star, DINA S. A. sold a great portion of its acquired MCI shares to Joseph Littlejohn & Levy. In 1994 TMC, including production rights for the RTS, was sold to NovaBus. In 1997 MCI purchased the rights from the bankrupt Flxible to produce the Flxible Metro and all related parts for same. After a period of product demand, increased competition and lay-offs in the early 2000s, production at MCI plants in Winnipeg and Pembina increased in 2006, 130 employees were added. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, MCI consolidated its operations, the Winnipeg site was expanded and modernized as well as DINA S. A. purchased North American Symix and opened an assembly plant in Buenos Aires Argentina and the DIMEX and DINAIR companies. A new coach finishing and paint facility and customer delivery centre were constructed on the site. At the same time, a seven-year contract was attained with the IAMAW union local.
This agreement contained cost improvements and production operations flexibility to improve the productivity and competitiveness of the manufacturing and assembly operations. The buses the older MC-8 and workhorse MC-9 models of the 1980s became the standard for interstate travel for many bus companies; those particular buses featured metal frames and roof supports, metal panels on the sides and were durable and reliable. Many of the buses, having survived millions of miles of commercial use, have been given a second career serving churches or other organizations, while the MCI/TMC coaches are popular "conversion shells", used for motorhomes; the "J" and "D" models are the leading coaches in the North American intercity coach market. Motor Coach Industries Inc. announced on September 15, 2008, the company had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as part of a restructuring the company said would "help shed hundreds of millions of dollars of debt". On April 17, 2009, Motor Coach Industries Inc. emerged from its voluntary Chapter 11 reorganization.
MCII and its subsidiaries became wholly owned by KPS Capital Partners, LP. KPS Capital Partners, LP is the Manager of the KPS Special Situations Funds, a family of private equity limited partnerships with over $2.6 billion of committed capital focused on constructive investing in restructurings and other special situations. On November 10, 2015, it was announced that Canadian bus manufacturer New Flyer Industries has an agreement to acquire Motor Coach Industries, Inc. for CAD $604 million or US$459 million, the deal closed in December 2015. On April 25, 2012, MCI announced a minority stake with Daimler AG to produce Setra buses for the North American market as Daimler reconfigured its bus operations in North America and exited the commercial bus market there; the takeover would make MCI the exclusive North American distributor of the Setra S407 and S417 German-manufactured premium motor coaches. Under the proposed agreement, through a transition period of several months following the execution of definitive agreements and the closing of the transaction, MCI would evaluate operations related to Setra in North America, where appropriate, integrate such operations with existing MCI facilities which will permit MCI and Daimler Buses to realize significant operatin
49th parallel north
The 49th parallel north is a circle of latitude, 49° north of Earth's equator. It crosses Europe, the Pacific Ocean, North America, the Atlantic Ocean; the city of Paris is about 15 km south of the 49th parallel and is the largest city between the 48th and 49th parallels. Its main airport, Charles de Gaulle Airport, lies on the parallel. 3,500 kilometres of the Canada–United States border was designated to follow the 49th parallel from British Columbia to Manitoba on the Canada side, from Washington to Minnesota on the U. S. side, more from the Strait of Georgia to the Lake of the Woods. This international border was specified in the Anglo-American Convention of 1818 and the Oregon Treaty of 1846, though survey markers placed in the 19th century cause the border to deviate from the 49th parallel by up to tens of meters. From a point on the ground at this latitude, the sun is above the horizon for 16 hours, 12 minutes during the summer solstice and 8 hours, 14 minutes during the winter solstice This latitude roughly corresponds to the minimum latitude in which astronomical twilight can last all night near the summer solstice.
Less than 1/8 of the Earth's surface is north of the 49th parallel. Starting at the Prime Meridian and heading eastwards, the parallel 49° north passes through: In North America, the westernmost monument on the 49th parallel is the Point Roberts Boundary Monument near the corner of Marine Drive and Roosevelt Way in the Point Roberts, Washington exclave south of Delta, British Columbia; the Peace Arch is a large monument between Surrey, British Columbia, Blaine, Washington. It is the centerpiece of Peace Arch Park. Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park in Alberta and Montana The International Peace Garden is located at the border between Manitoba and North Dakota, about midway between the nearby communities of Boissevain and Dunseith, North Dakota, it has as its focal point the Peace Tower. The Stadtgarten in Karlsruhe, marks the 49th parallel with a stone and painted line. Monument in the northern part of town centre, Prešov, Slovakia. In 1714, the Hudson's Bay Company proposed the 49th parallel as the western portion of the boundary between the company's land and French territory.
At the time and France had agreed, in the Treaty of Utrecht, to negotiate a boundary, but negotiations failed. Following the Louisiana Purchase by the United States in 1803, it was agreed that the boundary between the new territory and British North America was along the watershed between the Missouri River and Mississippi River basins on one side and the Hudson Bay basin on the other. However, it is difficult to determine the location of a watershed in a region of level plains, such as in central North America; the British and American committees that met after the War of 1812 to resolve boundary disputes recognized there would be much animosity in surveying the watershed boundary, agreed on a simpler border solution in the Treaty of 1818: the 49th parallel. Both sides gained and lost some territory by this convention, but the United States gained more than it lost, in particular securing title to the Red River Basin; this treaty established the boundary only between the line of longitude of the northwesternmost point of Lake of the Woods, on the east, the Rocky Mountains, on the west.
West of the Rockies, the treaty established joint occupation of the Oregon Country by both parties. Although the Convention of 1818 settled the boundary, neither country was able to control over the territories on its side of the line: effective control still rested with local Indian tribes the Métis, Assiniboine and Blackfoot, their power was ceded by conquest and treaty during the several decades that followed. Among these peoples, the 49th parallel was nicknamed the Medicine Line because of its magical ability to prevent U. S. soldiers from crossing it. In the 1844 U. S. presidential election, the Democratic Party asserted that the northern border of the Oregon Territory should be 54°40′ reflected in the 1846 slogan "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!" However, the Oregon boundary dispute was settled diplomatically in the 1846 Oregon Treaty. This agreement divided the Oregon Country between British North America and the United States by extending the 49th parallel boundary to the west coast, ending in the Strait of Georgia.
This had the side effect of isolating Washington. Although parts of Vancouver Island and parts of Eastern Canada are south of the 49th parallel, parts of the United States are north of it, the term 49th parallel is sometimes used metonymically to refer to the entire Canada-U. S. border. Many of Canada's most populated regions are south of the 49th parallel, including the two largest cities Toronto and Montreal, the federal capital Ottawa and the capitals of all provinces except the Prairie provinces, these being the only provinces north of the 49th parallel; the three Maritime provinces are each south of the parallel, but the vast majority of Canadian territory lies north of it. Parts of the 49th parallel were surveyed using astronomical techniques that did not take into account slight departure
Fargo, North Dakota
Fargo is a city in and the county seat of Cass County, North Dakota, United States. The most populous city in the state, it accounts for nearly 17% of the state population. According to the 2017 United States Census estimates, its population was 122,359, making it the 225th-most populous city in the United States. Fargo, along with its twin city of Moorhead, Minnesota, as well as the adjacent cities of West Fargo, North Dakota and Dilworth, form the core of the Fargo-Moorhead, ND-MN Metropolitan Statistical Area, which in 2017 contained a population of 241,356. Founded in 1871 on the Red River of the North floodplain, Fargo is a cultural, health care and industrial center for eastern North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota; the city is home to North Dakota State University. Part of Sioux territory, the area, present-day Fargo was an early stopping point for steamboats traversing the Red River during the 1870s and 1880s; the city was named "Centralia," but was renamed "Fargo" after Northern Pacific Railway director and Wells Fargo Express Company founder William Fargo.
The area started to flourish after the arrival of the Northern Pacific Railroad and the city became known as the "Gateway to the West." During the 1880s, Fargo became the "divorce capital" of the Midwest because of lenient divorce laws. A major fire struck the city on June 7, 1893, destroying 31 blocks of downtown Fargo, but the city was rebuilt with new buildings made of brick, new streets, a water system. More than 246 new buildings were built within one year. There were several rumors concerning the cause of the fire; the North Dakota Agricultural College was founded in 1890 as North Dakota's land-grant university, becoming first accredited by the North Central Association in 1915. In 1960, NDAC became known as North Dakota State University. Early in the century, the automobile industry flourished, in 1905, Fargo was home to the Pence Automobile Company. On Labor Day in 1910, Theodore Roosevelt visited Fargo to lay the cornerstone of the college's new library. To a crowd of 30,000, Roosevelt spoke about his first visit to Fargo 27 years earlier, credited his experience homesteading in North Dakota for his eventual rise to the presidency.
Fargo-Moorhead boomed after World War II, the city grew despite a violent tornado in 1957 that destroyed a large part of the city's north end. Ted Fujita, famous for his Fujita tornado scale, analyzed pictures of the Fargo tornado, which helped him develop his ideas for "wall cloud" and "tail cloud." These were the first major scientific descriptive terms associated with tornadoes. The coming of two interstates revolutionized travel in the region and pushed growth of Fargo to the south and west of the city limits. In 1972, the West Acres Shopping Center, the largest shopping mall in North Dakota, was constructed near the intersection of the two Interstates; this mall would become the catalyst for retail growth in the area. Fargo has continued to expand but steadily. Since the mid-1980s, the bulk of new residential growth has occurred in the south and southwest areas of the city due to geographic constraints on the north side; the city's major retail districts on the southwest side have seen rapid development.
Downtown Fargo has been gentrified due in part to investments by the city and private developers in the Renaissance Zone. Most older neighborhoods, such as Horace Mann, have either avoided decline or been revitalized through housing rehabilitation promoted by planning agencies to strengthen the city's core. NDSU has grown into a major research university, forms a major component of the city's identity and economy. Most students live off-campus in the surrounding Roosevelt neighborhood; the university has established a presence downtown through both academic buildings and apartment housing. In addition, NDSU Bison Football has become a major sport following among many area residents. Since the late 1990s, the Fargo-Moorhead Metropolitan Statistical Area has had one of the lowest unemployment rates among MSAs in the United States. Coupled with Fargo's low crime rate and the decent supply of affordable housing in the community, this has prompted Money magazine to rank the city near the top of its annual list of America's most livable cities throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Fargo is a core city of the Fargo-Moorhead metropolitan area, which includes Moorhead, West Fargo, Dilworth as well as outlying communities. Fargo sits on the western bank of the Red River of the North in a flat geographic region known as the Red River Valley; the Red River Valley resulted from the withdrawal of glacial Lake Agassiz, which drained away about 9,300 years ago. The lake sediments deposited from Lake Agassiz made the land around Fargo some of the richest in the world for agricultural uses. Fargo's largest challenge is the seasonal floods due to the rising water of the Red River, which flows from the United States into Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada; the Red flows northward, which means melting snow and river ice, as well as runoff from its tributaries create ice dams causing the river to overflow. Fargo's surrounding Red River Valley terrain is flat, leading to overland flooding. Since the devastating flood of 2009, both Fargo and Moorhead have taken great strides in flood protection, only a near record flood would cause concern today.
Its location makes the city vulnerable to flooding during seasons with above average precipitation. The Red River's "minor" flood stage in Fargo begins at a level of 18 feet, with "major" flooding categorized at 30 feet and above. Many major downtown roadways and access to Moorhead are closed off at this level. Record snowfalls late in 19
Minnesota
Minnesota is a state in the Upper Midwest and northern regions of the United States. Minnesota was admitted as the 32nd U. S. state on May 11, 1858, created from the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory. The state has a large number of lakes, is known by the slogan the "Land of 10,000 Lakes", its official motto is L'Étoile du Nord. Minnesota is the 12th largest in area and the 22nd most populous of the U. S. states. This area is the center of transportation, industry and government, while being home to an internationally known arts community; the remainder of the state consists of western prairies now given over to intensive agriculture. Minnesota was inhabited by various indigenous peoples for thousands of years prior to the arrival of Europeans. French explorers and fur traders began exploring the region in the 17th century, encountering the Dakota and Ojibwe/Anishinaabe tribes. Much of what is today Minnesota was part of the vast French holding of Louisiana, purchased by the United States in 1803.
Following several territorial reorganizations, Minnesota in its current form was admitted as the country's 32nd state on May 11, 1858. Like many Midwestern states, it remained centered on lumber and agriculture. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, a large number of European immigrants from Scandinavia and Germany, began to settle the state, which remains a center of Scandinavian American and German American culture. In recent decades, immigration from Asia, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, Latin America has broadened its demographic and cultural composition; the state's economy has diversified, shifting from traditional activities such as agriculture and resource extraction to services and finance. Minnesota's standard of living index is among the highest in the United States, the state is among the best-educated and wealthiest in the nation; the word Minnesota comes from the Dakota name for the Minnesota River: The river got its name from one of two words in the Dakota language,'Mní sóta' which means "clear blue water", or'Mnißota', which means cloudy water.
Native Americans demonstrated the name to early settlers by dropping milk into water and calling it mnisota. Many places in the state have similar names, such as Minnehaha Falls, Minneota, Minnetonka and Minneapolis, a combination of mni and polis, the Greek word for "city". Minnesota is the second northernmost U. S. state and northernmost contiguous state. Its isolated Northwest Angle in Lake of the Woods county is the only part of the 48 contiguous states lying north of the 49th parallel; the state is part of the U. S. region known as part of North America's Great Lakes Region. It shares a Lake Superior water border with Michigan and a land and water border with Wisconsin to the east. Iowa is to the south, North Dakota and South Dakota are to the west, the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Manitoba are to the north. With 86,943 square miles, or 2.25% of the United States, Minnesota is the 12th-largest state. Minnesota has gneisses that are about 3.6 billion years old. About 2.7 billion years ago, basaltic lava poured out of cracks in the floor of the primordial ocean.
The roots of these volcanic mountains and the action of Precambrian seas formed the Iron Range of northern Minnesota. Following a period of volcanism 1.1 billion years ago, Minnesota's geological activity has been more subdued, with no volcanism or mountain formation, but with repeated incursions of the sea, which left behind multiple strata of sedimentary rock. In more recent times, massive ice sheets at least one kilometer thick ravaged the state's landscape and sculpted its terrain; the Wisconsin glaciation left 12,000 years ago. These glaciers covered all of Minnesota except the far southeast, an area characterized by steep hills and streams that cut into the bedrock; this area is known as the Driftless Zone for its absence of glacial drift. Much of the remainder of the state outside the northeast has 50 feet or more of glacial till left behind as the last glaciers retreated. Gigantic Lake Agassiz formed in the northwest 13,000 years ago, its bed created the fertile Red River valley, its outflow, glacial River Warren, carved the valley of the Minnesota River and the Upper Mississippi downstream from Fort Snelling.
Minnesota is geologically quiet today. The state's high point is Eagle Mountain at 2,301 feet, only 13 miles away from the low of 601 feet at the shore of Lake Superior. Notwithstanding dramatic local differences in elevation, much of the state is a rolling peneplain. Two major drainage divides meet in Minnesota's northeast in rural Hibbing, forming a triple watershed. Precipitation can follow the Mississippi River south to the Gulf of Mexico, the Saint Lawrence Seaway east to the Atlantic Ocean, or the Hudson Bay watershed to the Arctic Ocean; the state's nickname, "Land of 10,000 Lakes", is apt, as there are 11,842 Minnesota lakes over 10 acres in size. Minnesota's portion of Lake Superior is the largest at 962,700 acres and deepest body of wate
listen)) is a city in Pembina County, North Dakota, United States. The population was 592 at the 2010 census.[5] Pembina is located 2 miles (3.2 km) south of the Canada–US border. Interstate 29 passes on the west side of Pembina, leading north to the Canada–US border at Emerson, Manitoba and south to the cities of Grand Forks and Fargo; the Pembina-Emerson Border Crossing is the busiest between Blaine, Washington and Detroit, Michigan and the fifth busiest along the Canada-United States border. It is one of three 24-hour ports of entry in North Dakota, the others being Portal and Dunseith;[6] the Emerson-Noyes border crossing, located 2 miles (3.2 km) to the east on the Minnesota side of the Red River, also processed cross border traffic until its closure in 2006.
