Here are the stories of the earliest pioneers of North Dakota told by those who experienced the decades of the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s. Recorded in the middle 1930s by interviewers working in a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project, those who settled the land tell "the way it was" for them when they came to the frontiers. Gleaned from over 5,000 stories which are archivally stored at the State Historical of North Dakota. Each book is illustrated with photographs from North Dakota collections.