Squaw Gap, North Dakota

Squaw Gap is a tiny hamlet on North Dakota Highway 16 in McKenzie County, extending across the Montana border as West Squaw Gap. The name refers to a local rock formation.[3]

Squaw Gap, ND, and West Squaw Gap, MT
Coordinates: 47.4889052°N 103.9274263°W / 47.4889052; -103.9274263
CountryUnited States of America
StateNorth Dakota
CountyMcKenzie County
Elevation
2,280 ft (695 m)
Time zoneUTC-7 (Mountain)
 • Summer (DST)UTC-6
ZIP
59270
Area codes+1 701 (ND) and +1 406 (MT)[1]
[2]

The unincorporated village comprises a school and a community center (the Squaw Gap Multipurpose Center). The land is rugged, with a series of buttes extending to the horizon.[4]

The McKenzie County school, which had been operating since 1904, had two students in 2006. It is now closed; local students attend Rau School in Sidney, Montana. Squaw Gap School, when it was functioning, served kindergarten through sixth grade.[5] A trailer on the school property used to house the lone schoolmaster, but has since been occupied by a local woman.

A local independent telephone exchange was inaugurated on December 15, 1971 with an NBC broadcast of a first phone call from Squaw Gap to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz in Washington D.C.[6] The community was one of the last to obtain landline telephone service in the continental United States. (Iowa Hill, California lost its service in the 1960s, but regained it in 2010.)

References
  1. http://www.localcallingguide.com/lca_prefix.php?switch=SQGPNDXARS5
  2. http://www.openstreetmap.org/node/151354328#map=9/47.5283/-103.7755
  3. http://www.webfamilytree.com/North_Dakota_Place_Names/S/squaw_gap_%28mckenzie_county%29.htm
  4. https://www.flickr.com/photos/waski_the_squirrel/sets/72157605653005777
  5. http://bismarcktribune.com/news/local/tiny-mckenzie-county-school-hanging-on-with-two-students/article_e2832a4c-e63a-5d1c-aa25-d93212b5fc97.html
  6. http://www.reservation-telephone.com/history/
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