During the height of the flooding, a major fire destroyed eleven buildings in the downtown area.

The government began developing a new levee system to protect the city, which was completed ten years later.

In the 1920s the state-owned North Dakota Mill and Elevator was constructed on the city's north side.

Grand Forks Air Force Base brought thousands of new jobs and residents to the community.

With construction of federal highways, during the postwar years residential and business development became suburbanized, spreading to new areas as land was available.The Red River had a history of seasonal flooding, aggravated by the broad ancient lake bed that formed the Red River Valley.