Book launch days are always the best days, and today’s book (re)launch is particularly sweet.

The Digital Press at the University of North Dakota is happy to announce its tenth book, Chris Price’s The Old Church on Walnut Street: A Story of Immigrants and Evangelicals. The book is a microhistory of a single building in Grand Forks, North Dakota that opens onto a century-long story of immigrants and evangelicals in this community. The turn-of-the-century wood-frame church is sadly long gone, but the story that Chris Price tells of the pastors, the congregation, and life in Grand Forks is a timely reminder that the state of North Dakota and its communities grew from religious diversity and immigrant roots.

Download the book here or buy it for $10 on Amazon. (While you’re at it, download (or buy) David Haeselin’s Haunted by Waters: The Future of Memory and the Red River Flood of 1997 and The Old Church on Walnut Street for a Grand Forks themed bundle! Or grab William Sherman’s Prairie Mosaic: An Ethnic Atlas of Rural North Dakota. 2nd Edition (NDSU Press 2017) for a statewide story of immigrants!)  

~

Long time followers of my antics will remember that this book is not exactly new, although this edition has a new preface that Chris Price Kindly penned and I’ve added an ISBN and an LCCN as well as a snazzy new cover. The original edition of this book dropped when The Digital Press was only a glimmer in my eye as an effort to generate interest in a Grand Forks Neighborhood History Series. My longtime co-conspirator Bret Weber and I had this vision of a series of books that would tell the story of various neighborhoods in Grand Forks. We were even willing to put some money behind it. Unfortunately, I make prospective authors an offer that they couldn’t refuse and the project foundered. Despite my lack of success of the series, I remain incredibly proud of the first (and only) book in the series. 

Chris’s book reminds me of one of my favorite buildings in Grand Forks. A simple wood-framed church, the last of its kind, tucked into a quiet wood-framed neighborhood. Casual passers-by would have no idea of the rich history that this building preserved in its walls and its community. The church is gone now, reduced to a pile of bricks shortly after this book was released.

A house built by the Grand Forks Community Land Trust now stands on the lot. That’s a pretty good consolation prize for the loss of the church, but I still can’t quite bring myself to going down Walnut Street. 

That being said, I do hope that the book will stand as a monument even through the building is lost. I’m proud that this book was both the prequel and now is tenth book published by the Digital Press at the University of North Dakota.