What is Sheldon, North Dakota?

There's been one mystery in our Sheldon family that I've never found an answer to.  Here's how it started.  While going through my Grandma Hagan's genealogy papers back in the 1980s, I found 2 interesting items about our ancestor, Edward Sheldon.

1)  a letter from the County Clerk of Ransom County North Dakota dated Sept 13, 1881.  It indicates that they are enclosing deeds (from March?) that were recorded, specifically one from BD Wilcox to EE Sheldon.

2)  An envelope dated 1893 from the State Bank of Sheldon North Dakota.  Someone's handwriting (probably Edwards) indicate that the contents probably held an abstract (deed?) of the 640 acres of the original town site.

Now, Edward Sheldon had been living in Jackson Michigan during this time.  And I really had no idea why there was communication about land in North Dakota.  But what peaked my interest was the fact that the town was SHELDON North Dakota.  I wondered if it was just a coincidence that our ancestor was Edward Sheldon, and the town was named Sheldon. I had these papers for about 30 years, always wondering about this mystery.

Just recently I decided to do a google search on "Sheldon North Dakota" and see what I found.  [You see, there is new digitized information going up on the net all the time, so it's useful to search your ancestors names periodically.]

Anyway.... JACKPOT!!!   I found that the town of Sheldon North Dakota had digitized a 100 year town history dated 1911.  In it,  it describes the formation of the town. (http://digitalhorizonsonline.org/cdm/ref/collection/ndsl-books/id/44417)

The Fargo & Southwestern Railroad was being built through Ransom County, North Dakota.  B.D. Wilcox bought land (I think 640 acres) from the railroad for $3200. He apparently had no money to pay for the land, so he sold the land to our ancestor, E.E. Sheldon for $3800. [Now how in the world did E.E.Sheldon who lived in Michigan, get into land speculation in North Dakota?].  The article states that Edward then platted the land, sold off some lots, deeded half the land back to the railroad so that the town could be built on that land.  About a year later, he then sold the rest of the land to another party for $8000.

So Edward made a $4200 profit in 1 year in 1882.  I did a little research on this.  The average wage earner in 1880 made $16 per week or $832 per year.  And $4200 in 1882 would be about $97,500 in todays dollars.  $4200 would be equal to about 5 years of wages. (http://www.davemanuel.com/inflation-calculator.php)

So a couple questions come up about this:

1)  How did Edward come to have $3800 to invest?
2)  How did Edward get into land speculation in North Dakota?
3)  Why would Edward speculate on land on North Dakota?

This was new great information and really filled in a lot of blanks about these North Dakota papers.  Research to do is to get copies of the deeds.  Probably put together a financial history to see where he might have come into money.

Here's his descendancy chart::

If you want to read more about Edward Sheldon, here is the link to my main family history page biography:
http://members.toast.net/jan.monnin/hagan/Sheldon,Edward/sheldon,edward-bio.htm