FARGO – In the United States, the name “Fargo” probably brings to mind the largest city in North Dakota or perhaps the most famous movie that featured a wood chipper.

In Canada, however, it could evoke something entirely different – ​​a classic truck with an iconic globe on the grille.

Even if you’re not a car fan, you can appreciate the cool vintage look of the Fargo truck. Was it named after a real Fargoan?

Article/BC Vintage Truck Museum

The Fargo Motor Car Company was founded in 1913 on the south side of Chicago. It produced commercial vehicles, but production was not enough to stay on the market. Due to declining sales, the company had to close in 1922.

But just six years later, the Fargo brand was revived by the newly formed Chrysler Corporation. According to the Detroit Historical Society, shortly after Walter P. Chrysler founded the company in 1925, Chrysler began differentiating its vehicles by price and function, creating the Plymouth brand for the low-end market and the DeSoto brand for the mid-range market.

In 1928, after good sales of the Plymouth and DeSoto brands, the company sought to enter the commercial vehicle business and founded the Fargo Motor Corporation.

But why the name “Fargo”?

Could it be because Chrysler Vice President Joseph Fields, second in line after Walter P. Chrysler himself, happens to be from Fargo?

Joseph Fields was born in Fargo on April 18, 1878. His parents were among the city’s early residents, moving here in 1875 when his father got a job on the railroad and started a farm.

According to reports in the Forum archives, Richard Fields later served as the town’s police chief and weighmaster and helped build the first NP bridge over the Red River in the 1870s.

Joseph Fields worked on the family farm as a teenager, but after graduating from high school and later from Fargo College, he began working in the equipment business as a salesman for the old McCormick Harvester Company, which merged with International Harvester.

According to his 1951 obituary, Fields was not particularly fond of agricultural machinery.

“Instead, he and the late Fred Schofield started selling Buick cars when there were few cars on the road and few streets to put them on.”

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He later worked for the National Cash Register Company, where he met Hugh Chalmers. Chalmers eventually entered the automobile business and brought Fields with him. In 1923, the Chalmers Motor Company merged with Maxwell Motor, ultimately forming the basis for the Chrysler Corporation.

According to his obituary, Fields hit it off immediately with Walter P. Chrysler.

“When Fields met Chrysler, they made a deal within minutes and Fields came in as sales manager for both Maxwell and Chalmers.”

When Chrysler entered the truck business, Fields was already a respected vice president.

“At that time, because of its great friendship and admiration for Fields, Chrysler founded the Fargo Truck Corporation – in honor of Fields’ hometown.”

However, when the successful auto executive returned to Fargo in 1949 to visit friends, he wanted to “set the record straight.”

Fields told a group at the Elks Club, “The fact that I was born and raised in Fargo has nothing to do with Chrysler naming a truck after this city.”

Fields said that when Chrysler was looking for a name for its truck division, it considered more than 3,000 names before settling on Fargo.

“It was named after the Wells Fargo company because it was one of the first express companies in the country,” he said.

Some suspected that Fields was simply trying to be modest, since he was apparently Chrysler’s favorite executive and was eventually promoted to president of DeSoto.

According to an article written by Larry Knutson for the Plymouth Bulletin and published on Allpar, a website for Chrysler enthusiasts, Chrysler described Fields as a “good-looking guy and a great salesman” who never learned to take “no” for an answer.

According to Knutson, Fargo initially began producing two complete commercial vehicle lines.

“The lighter vehicle, the Packet, was based on the Plymouth Model Q. The larger Clipper came on the Chrysler 65 chassis. Both used a mix of Plymouth, DeSoto and Chrysler parts.”

Other models followed, but “Fargo” was doomed to failure, mainly because of Chrysler’s deal to acquire the Dodge Brothers Company. When that deal went through in 1930, Chrysler decided to manufacture and sell Dodge trucks exclusively in the United States.

However, Fargo brand trucks continued to be sold in Canada until the 1970s and abroad until 2015.

Contributed/Old Motors Facebook post

If you have traveled anywhere between Argentina and Turkey, you may have seen them.

In fact, some Vietnam veterans said they saw Fargo trucks on the streets during the war.

Fargo’s goal seemed to be international distribution. In 1937, the iconic globe became the symbol of Fargo, both in advertising and on the car itself.

Fields retired from Chrysler in 1943. Three weeks after his retirement, the bachelor married Miriam Howey Johnson, an old friend from Fargo. They lived the life you would expect of a wealthy former automobile executive and his wife – playing golf, going to the country club and traveling the world.

Nevertheless, he occasionally stopped off in Fargo, where he and friends would reminisce about horse racing on Broadway or how he had turned the Red River around the Great Northern Bridge into his “swimming hole.”

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“Those were the days,” he told the forum.

On March 12, 1951, he died of a heart attack while visiting his sister in Palm Springs, California.

He was brought back to Fargo for a lavish funeral, with some of the country’s top business leaders mourning him and Walter Chrysler Jr. serving as honorary pallbearer.

The man who may have inspired one of the world’s most famous trucks is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in North Fargo.

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Hi, I’m Tracy Briggs. Thanks for reading my column! I love reading “Back in the Day” every week, with stories about interesting people, places and things from our past. Check out a few of them below. If you have a story idea, email me at [email protected].