Search Results for: datebook
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Depression Script
With recent mortgage foreclosures in the housing market, we can perhaps more readily relate to the events that transpired in the Great Depression of the 1930s. With continual drought and low commodity prices, farmers across North Dakota were losing their farms to taxes and mortgages; but the State Legislature on this date would reintroduce an [...]
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False Reports
As the year 1906 drew to a close, North Dakotans looked forward to a prosperous new year. In the past year, the crops and livestock thrived, and a record number of settlers sought their fortunes in the flourishing western frontier. An article in the White Earth Record declared that for the coming year [...]
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World’s Shortest Interstate
The world’s shortest interstate streetcar line used to run between Wahpeton and Breckenridge. The route was .14 miles long, transported about 750 passengers a day, and ran from 1910 to 1925. It traveled about 15-20 miles per hour and provided one of the earliest means of traveling between the two towns. A few pieces of [...]
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Written Consent
While today, many young adults consider college a time to become independent, in the early 1900s, college was a different sort of experience, and on this date in 1908, the University of North Dakota announced a new rule for co-eds: if they wanted to go downtown after 6, they needed written permission from their parents!
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Arson Attempt
A Fargo woman’s visit to Moorhead on this date in 1910 nearly ended in tragedy as the woman attempted to burn down the Fargo city jail, along with herself and four male prisoners. The woman, Jane Hannibohl, had a lengthy police record, and was known for taking advantage of Moorhead’s lax liquor laws, despite [...]
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Thunderbird
In the 1930s, dust storms filled the horizon and rain was sparse across the Plains. A prolonged drought had gripped the parched farmland including the ancestral homelands of the Gros Ventre, whose people suffered greatly through this period, even in the fertile Missouri River Valley. But the people on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation now [...]
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Schirra’s Visit
Astronaut Walter Schirra caused quite a commotion on this date in 1966 on a visit to Fargo. The famous astronaut, known perhaps best for playing Jingle Bells on his harmonica during the Gemini 6 flight, was invited to Fargo to speak at the sixth annual Farm Forum. The speech was his first public [...]
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John Goodall
On a warm sunny day in the spring of 1884, Theodore Roosevelt stood on the banks of the Little Missouri River in Medora watching a determined young cowboy struggle to break a wild horse. The bucking bronco kicked violently down the bank to the river, trying to dismount its rider. But just as [...]
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Menoken Indian Village State Historic Site
It was this date in 1937 that the State Historical Society of North Dakota acquired the Menoken Indian Village. Located a few miles east of Bismarck, the village was home to roughly 200 people and consisted of approximately 30 oval-shaped earth lodges as well as an elaborate fortification system. North Dakota is home [...]
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Lisbon, we have a problem
The first attempt at flight in North Dakota was made on this date in 1910. Although the trial run was not successful, it led to further interest and, eventually, actual flight. A. E. Paulson, a Lisbon inventor, decided to try out his own version of an airplane on the outskirts of Lisbon. [...]