Streetcars and horse-drawn wagons still ran down Broadway in Fargo, N.D. There were 225 students enrolled at North Dakota Agricultural College (now North Dakota State University) on the north end of town. And the population of all of Cass County was just over 40,000.

It was 1911, and three men – O. C. Anderson, H. F. Nesne, who was Anderson’s uncle, and O. Skognes – incorporated Dakota Monument Company in the young state of North Dakota. They opened their doors at 101 Front Street (now Main Avenue) in Fargo, N.D. in February.

Anderson got his start in the memorial business in 1906 as founder of Crookston Marble and Granite in Crookston, Minn. He sold the company in 1910 and moved to Fargo to begin another new memorial business in a larger city. In 1912, Anderson and Nesne purchased Skognes’s interest to make it an entirely family-owned memorial company.

Anderson operated Dakota Monument Company until his death in 1938. At that time, his son, Frederick S. Anderson, took it over. Frederick Anderson moved the business to a new facility at 2414 South University Drive in Fargo in 1965. He continued to operate and grow the company until he passed away in May 1980.

David F. Anderson succeeded his father as the Dakota Monument Company owner. He remembers watching his father hand chisel letters and designs into stone in the small shop off the alley behind Dakota Monument for the company’s customers. Dave learned everything he could from his dad and the other craftsmen in the shop, as well as the business side of the company.

In 1994, Dave oversaw the construction of a new facility at 1212 24th Ave. South in Fargo, where Dakota Monument is still located.

The fifth generation of Andersons entered the business in 2013 when Dustin Anderson became  our outside salesperson. Seth Anderson became our assistant production manager in 2015.

Today Dakota Monument Company is the only monument company in North Dakota invited to be one of 50 members of the American Institute of Commemorative Art. The company also has been a part of the Monument Builders of North America since 1982.

The family tradition at Dakota Monument continues with Dave, Dustin and Seth. Give us a call, and we’ll help you make your family’s traditions, moments and memories last forever.