One day while I was working at the State Archives, a patron approached the reference desk and asked me why Little Egypt Park, located in Williams County, was called Little Egypt? The person was interested in finding out why and how the park ended up with that name. I was intrigued myself, as I couldn’t think of any historical or geographical reasoning behind the name and set to work searching through various resources at the State Archives. This is what I found.

Little Egypt Park, located 30 miles south of Ray on Lake Sakakawea, features picnic areas, camping, and direct access to the lake so visitors can boat, fish, and swim at the park as well. In the late 1980s, plans were made to improve the park by creating a swimming area and bathhouse as well as upgraded picnic shelters and camping areas. And that’s all I was able to find. I looked through the State Archives resources I knew of, including “The Wonders of Williams: A History of Williams County, North Dakota,” local newspapers, and collections relating to parks and the creation of the parks, with no luck. This was odd, since it is common to find information about a park’s origins or name significance in our collections. Feeling stumped and not sure where else to search, I asked other State Archives staff members if they had any ideas, perhaps they had researched Little Egypt Park in the past. Shane Molander, the state archivist, reached out to State Historical Board member Richard Stenberg, an associate professor in the Arts and Human Sciences Department at Williston State College, with my question and provided me with the first lead I had so far: The old-timers in Williams County would say that the land had good soil or dirt. But what was the connection?

The sprawling Little Egypt Park on the shores of Lake Sakakawea. Courtesy Williams County

This research got me thinking about how and why place names were chosen during European immigration and settlement in the Midwest and Western states. The capital city of Bismarck is famously named in honor of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. A settlement in Traill County was given the name Little Chicago, and later in Dunseith, Little Chicago of the West was formed in the hopes that it would soon rival the city in Illinois. Towns across the Midwest were named Little Norway or Little Sweden by Norwegian or Swedish immigrants. So what inspired the people of Williams County to choose Little Egypt as their new park’s name? Continuing my search, I started looking for places named Little Egypt outside of North Dakota to see if any other information could be gathered about this interesting place name.

I came across this advertisement during my search for Little Egypt place names. The Devils Lake World, October 4, 1922, p. 15

Southern Illinois is nicknamed “Little Egypt,” with several towns in the southern half of the state named after Egyptian cities. This nickname was inspired by comparisons of the geographic features of the Mississippi River and flood plains of southern Illinois to the fertile Nile Valley in Egypt. Poor harvests in the northern regions of the state also contributed to this nickname, as the land in southern Illinois provided food relief to the struggling north during the winter of 1830-31.

Suddenly the dots began to connect. The “good dirt” that the old timers in Williams County thought the name came from could have been an allusion to the fertile soil found in that region of the county or to the fertile soil they hoped the region would have. The name also evokes the feeling of a prosperous community, like the settlers in Little Chicago would have wanted. Or perhaps people from southern Illinois settled in Williams County and chose to name the park after their home in Illinois. One single answer may not exist with multiple inspirations possible. But as it doesn’t appear the reason for the name was recorded, my quest continues.

The State Historical Society of North Dakota has over 14 million artifacts in its museum, archives, and archaeology collections. That’s a lot! To showcase more of these, we’ve started a new video series called “Our Heritage.” Each month’s video features artifacts related to a prominent North Dakotan, historical topic, or related theme and are presented by a member of our staff who’s an expert on or has a passion for the subject.

Our first video, which premiered in January, focused on Fannie Dunn Quain, North Dakota’s first licensed female physician. Sarah Walker, head of reference services in the State Archives, pulled the Fannie Dunn Quain papers from the collections to discuss and show who this trailblazer was.

Next up was a two-part video with Security Supervisor David Schlecht highlighting some of the firearms in the museum gun vault. This represented just a small sampling of the more than 500 firearms in our gun vault. We feel very lucky to have a Smith & Wesson Model 320 Revolving Rifle with a 20-inch barrel since only about 244 of these were ever made.

April’s video was very timely and my personal favorite so far as I had no idea at least three passengers on the RMS Titanic had ties to North Dakota. Here, Head of Reference Services Sarah Walker tells the stories of Ole Ableseth, Herbert and Carrie Chaffee, and Johannes Nysveen. An audio clip from Ole Ableseth talking about his experience on the Titanic will be sure to pull at your heartstrings.

Our newest video, scheduled to be published May 21, features Captain Joseph Enright, the officer credited with sinking the largest warship by a U.S. submarine. Learn more about Enright from State Historical Society Director Bill Peterson and see some of the pins he received for his service in the U.S. Navy.

We really enjoy making these videos and hope you enjoy watching them and learning more about our collections. See the videos at youtube.com/user/SHSND. We won’t tell you what videos are planned for the next few months, but we will say one will be with multiple people from different departments within the agency discussing artifacts related to the chosen topic. It will be a great collaboration!