A Valley City man found himself in some trouble on this day in 1907. Martin Bakken, a tailor in that city, was known by many of the locals to have an “appetite for liquor [that had] gotten him into trouble before,” but when police found the man trying to break into a house at two o’clock in the morning on that day, they were extremely perplexed by the situation. Bakken, fresh from a night on the town, appeared to be unaware that he was attempting to get into the residence, and only hoped to get into someplace warm. In fact, it became clear that the man had absolutely no idea of what he was doing at the house. After further inspection, it was found that the man’s fingers were badly frozen. Although giving the occupants of the house a scare, police found the man’s behavior to be harmless to everyone involved but himself, for Bakken was to lose some of his frozen fingers to the incident. It appeared that the tailor’s drinking days had finally caught up with him.

Source:
The Fargo Forum and Daily Republican (Evening ed.). January 22, 1907: p. 10.

--Jayme L. Job

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