Search Results for: datebook
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Champion Potato Picker
On this date in 1940, potatoes were on the menu-or at least, the agenda-for competitors in a National Potato Picking Contest in Barnesville, Minnesota. The contest started in 1938 and is ongoing even today, as part of Barnesville’s Potato Days celebration. Today, they start the contest at 10:00 on a Saturday morning at the sound [...]
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First Million Dollar Project
It was this date in 1881 that the Northern Pacific Railroad began major operations on the first million dollar project in North Dakota history. And that was when a million dollars could actually buy you something.
Throughout much of the 1870s and 1880s, the Northern Pacific worked doggedly to join the Great Lakes seaports with [...] -
Fort Lincoln Internment Camp: Ernst Pohlig
Yesterday we brought you the story of Toyojiro Suzuki, a Japanese American interned at Fort Lincoln during WWII. At its peak population, Fort Lincoln housed 1200 Japanese and 500 German detainees.
Today we bring you Ernst Pohlig’s story from the German side of camp. Technically he was a “detainee” until the US declared war on [...] -
Fort Lincoln Internment Camp: Toyojiro Suzuki
December 7 will be forever etched into the American story as the day that will live in infamy. While it was a tragic day, for many Japanese Americans, another tragedy was yet to come.
Toyojiro Suzuki was on a fishing boat in 1941 when he heard the news; the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. [...] -
Grasshopper Crusher
Modern insecticides have stopped grasshoppers from being the nightmare they used to be, but many can remember the days when each step into a field sent hundreds of grasshoppers catapulting into the air.
In the 1880s, enterprising farmer living near Hope came up with way to deal with his hoppers. The Steele County Centennial book reports [...] -
American Legion Baseball
American Legion Baseball, which got its start in South Dakota in 1925, was the first program to provide a national baseball tournament for teenagers.
In 1962, Bismarck hosted the program’s “Little World Series.” Everyone got into the spirit of the program, with Governor Guy designating it “North Dakota American Legion Baseball Week,” and Mayor Lips declaring [...] -
Farming Devils Lake
Most people in North Dakota are aware of the problems associated with Devils Lake. A rising water level has submerged thousands of acres of crop land, surrounded towns and farms and left the road system in shambles. Attempts to drain the massive lake has been met with stiff resistance from downstream concerns along [...]
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Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Arctic Explorer
A legendary Arctic explorer died on this date in 1962. He was Vilhjalmur Stefansson, born in 1879 to Icelandic immigrants in Manitoba. When he was two, the family moved to the Icelandic community of Mountain, in northeastern North Dakota, where Vilhjalmur remainder of his younger years.
Stefansson is said to have been a rugged boy who [...] -
Buffalo Bill Comes to Town, part 2
On this date in 1910, Buffalo Bill Cody, on a farewell tour, bought his “Wild West” show to North Dakota. The Fargo audience saw attractions such as the World’s Smallest Cowboy, The King of Cowboys, and the Rough Rider Congress of the World, which brought together the world’s finest cavalrymen in an exhibition of [...]
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Buffalo Bill Comes to Town
For three decades, William F. Cody, better known as “Buffalo Bill,” entertained throngs of spectators with his world famous show, “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.” And on this date in 1910, as part of his farewell tour, Cody was preparing for his final appearance in North Dakota.
Cody was born in Scott County, Iowa in 1846, and [...]