Gardar was originally named Park.

The first post master was Eirikur Bergmann.

The first school was built in 1882.

The first Icelandic Church service in Pembina County was held December 5, 1878 at a home near Cavalier of their Norwegian friend, Butler Olson.

November 24, 1880, there was a general meeting regarding a church at Gardar. A congregation was organized and a formal call to a pastorate made to the Reverend Pall Thorlaksson. The members promised contributions to pay his modest salary, starting with a collection of $50 at the meeting. The following week, November 30, 1880, there was a meeting at Mountain to organize a congregation and to call Rev. Thorlaksson as minister. This meeting collected $95 towards his salary. Two other congregations followed shortly afterwards.

March 1, 1882, the settlement suffered the loss of its leader, the Rev. Pall Thorlaksson, who died after a long struggle against ill health. Because of the severe weather, the burial service was not held until April 12. Four pinoeer children were baptized at the casket. At the time of his death, the congregations did not own a single church building or meeting house. Rev. Pall Thorlaksson had donated land in Mountain for a cemetery and he was one of the first to be buried there. His marble column tombstone marks the grave of “the father of the Icelandic communities in North Dakota.”

In 1886, Reverend Fridrik Bergmann came to Dakota Territory. He was the first teacher and also a prominent minister in the Gardar area. From 1886 - 1893, he covered an extensive territory from Pembina to Grafton, to the Pembina Mountains. He stayed the minister to the Gardar area until 1902 when he  became a professor of Icelandic language and literature at Wesley College, Winnipeg, Canada.