Hillsboro is a small city in Traill County, North Dakota. It is the county seat of Traill County. The population was 1,649 at the 2020 census. Hillsboro was founded in 1881.

Hillsboro sits in the fertile Red River Valley. Local agriculture has dominated the area’s economy from the beginning. With its location on Interstate 29, halfway amid the two metropolitan centers of Greater Grand Forks and Fargo–Moorhead, Hillsboro has seen steady population enlargement in recent years and has become somewhat of a bedroom community.

The area along the Goose River that is now Hillsboro was first decided by German and Norwegian settlers a propos 1870. In 1880, the gift day site of Hillsboro was founded below the name “Comstock”. Local folklore tells of the residents of easily reached Caledonia, North Dakota turning away a shabby surveyor because of his appearance. This man was next offered hospitality by residents in the tiny settlement of Comstock. The man turned out to be railroad baron James J. Hill.

Hill was in view of that impressed by the affability showed to him by the residents of this small community that he arranged to place his Great Northern Railway there on the other hand of in Caledonia. The herald of Comstock was platted as “Hill City” in September 1880 in great compliment of Mr. Hill. The city was after that renamed “Hillsboro” in 1883 after it was discovered that there was already a “Hill City” elsewhere in Dakota Territory, now a allocation of South Dakota.