Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 59
March 21, 2019 — “Let no man think we can deny civil liberty to others and retain it for ourselves. When zealous agents of the Government arrest suspected ‘radicals’ without warrant, hold them without prompt trial, deny them access to counsel and admission of bail...we have shorn the Bill of Rights of its sanctity...” Those were the words of Republican Senator Robert La Follette, who was endorsed for President by North Dakota Republicans in 1916, almost 90 years ago. It was the Wisconsin senator’s second endorsement by the state. La Follette...
March 4, 2019 — About this time in 1911, the town of Milton and the surrounding communities were reeling from a series of events that led to the murder trial of one of the town’s most highly regarded citizens, Dr. J. J. Reilly. It started on Feb. 23 with the unexpected death of 22-year-old Mrs. Will Drury, who had married just seven weeks before. Cavalier County knew her as Lilly Sweet, a well-liked schoolteacher who had spent much of her youth in the area. She was in Milton visiting friends when she became violently ill. She died the next day...
Feb. 28, 2019 — Today marks the anniversary of the death of Maxwell Anderson in 1959. He was one of the most important American playwrights of the 20th century. Born in 1888, Anderson spent his first three years on a farm near Atlantic, Pa. His father worked as a railroad fireman while studying at night to become a Baptist minister. The family moved to Jamestown in 1907, where Anderson graduated from high school. Going on to UND, Anderson joined nearly every club related to writing and drama. For money, he waited tables and worked at the n...
Three Men in a Blizzard Feb. 13, 2019 — In “A History of Foster County,” there’s a story of how three friends survived the big blizzard of 1886. Their wagon was only 12 feet from their tarpaper shack, but the next morning a blizzard completely blocked it from sght. Toward evening, they headed for the stable to feed the animals. “The storm came from the northwest,” one of them said, “and going with the wind we made the stable all right, but coming back was a different thing... we walked until we struck a bare spot and discovered it w...
World’s Shortest Interstate Feb, 8, 2019 — 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 the rail are still visible in the sidewalk outside the streetcar garage that still stands in Breckenridge. There were always two streetcars running simultaneously; a round-trip loop...
Henry Clay Hansbrough by Merry Helm Jan. 30, 2019 — Today is the birthday of Henry Clay Hansbrough, who was born in Illinois in 1848. President James Polk’s opponent for the presidency, Henry Clay, attended the wedding of Elisha Hansbrough and Sarah Hagan. As he rode off, he suggested they name their first boy after them. And they did. The Hansbrough family could trace their roots on American soil back to 1640. Young Henry was preparing for college while living on his father’s farm in Kentucky when the Civil War broke out, closing Henry...
Jan. 7, 2019— Lieutenant Colonel Richard Johnson was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery with full Air Force Military Honors on this date in 2003. Dick was born on Sep. 21, 1917, near Cooperstown, the eighth of 10 children. His father died when he was only eight, and his mother raised the family on very modest means. His first love was flying, and when he was just a kid, he had a homemade airplane he powered with a Model T engine. As he matured, however, it looked like Dick was destined for baseball. In fact, he was actually in s...
Dec. 24, 2018 — James Grassick started his career as a physician in Buxton in 1885. Among his many interests were Indian lore and archaeology— you might remember that he once owned the Highgate mastodon that now resides in the North Dakota Heritage Center in Bismarck. He also enjoyed writing, and each year, he put together handsome booklets for his friends for Christmas. In one of these, he wrote of a special Christmas Eve he experienced back in the horse and buggy days. It was after nightfall when the good doctor was called to attend a wom...
Dec. 19, 2018 — If you went to International Music Camp between 1956 and 1983, you most definitely remember the tall, silver-haired gentleman who ran the show. He was Merton Utgaard, the camp’s founder. He was born in Maddock in 1914, and today marks the anniversary of his death. Experiencing Dr. Utgaard as a music conductor was at once terrifying and awe-inspiring. Tryouts were torture. Joe Alme, the camp’s present administrator, recalls summer, 1963: “My first three days at camp were the worst of my life. I sat last chair trombone that fi...
Dec. 11, 2018 — When World War I broke out, a large number of North Dakotans still had fairly strong ties to the old country. At this time in 1916, the Bismarck Tribune published a story that showed the lengths to which some had to go to prove they weren’t spies for the enemy: “The North Dakota railroad commission is a firm believer in ‘Safety First,’” the story read. “That is why the commissioners, when they [soon] enter Canada..., will be armed with showy, official letters of introduction from Governor Hanna [stating] Messrs Stuttsman, An...
Nov. 12, 2018 — This week in 2001, a Japanese woman was discovered dead after a mysterious cross-state sojourn that many believed was her search for the lost treasure depicted in the Coen brothers’ movie, “Fargo.” Takako Konishi was first noticed by a trucker who spotted the 28-year-old wandering near a landfill on the outskirts of Bismarck; she was wearing a black miniskirt that marked her as an out-of-towner, especially considering the cold November weather. He took Takako to the Bismarck police station where she pulled out a hand-dr...
November 13, 2018— On this date in 1913, a controversy erupted in Sykeston over whether an American flag had been used improperly. A news story stated, “When the M.E. Kremer & Co. auction sale was started, a government flag was hoisted over the building. During the night some one took down the flag and left a note protesting against the use of the old glory for commercial purposes and calling the action of raising it a disgrace.” “The incident created considerable excitement here,” the article continued, “and different views are held by the...
Nov. 5, 2018 — Tomorrow, it will be 29 years since Clifton E. Cushman was officially declared dead. He had been missing in action since September 25, 1966, when his F-105 Thunderchief went down over the Haiphong area of Vietnam. He was 28. Cushman’s hometown was Grand Forks, where he distinguished himself as a gifted hurdler. In fact, he was recognized as the North Dakota Male Athlete of the Year in 1960— the same year he won silver in the 400-meter hurdles at the Olympics in Rome. Cushman’s dream was to come back to capture the gold in ’64, bu...
Oct. 31, 2018 — Today is Halloween, a good day for ghost stories, and North Dakota has no shortage of them. Legends have been floating around for years of the “Kindred Lights,” the “Grim Reaper” in a Baptist church near Fredonia, the “Fatal Stump” near Belfield, and the “Gas Chamber” on the deserted Oss farmstead near Hatton. In Grand Forks, in the Altru Hospital, a staff elevator seems to make unexpected runs on its own, stopping at routine floors on and off throughout the night. Custer’s wife is said to haunt her former home at Fort Lincoln i...
Oct. 24, 2018 — A major encounter with a very large orange UFO took place near Minot Air Force Base on this date in 1968. It was the middle of the Cold War. Active missile sites were peppered across the North Dakota landscape, and military personnel were on high alert. At about 3 a.m., Mike O’Connor was dispatched to respond to an alarm that went off at a nearby missile site. As he drove, he saw a bright light “lift off the ground, and parallel us down the road, until we came to the missile site.” When he got out of the truck, he said, the lig...
Oct. 9, 2018 — On a cold winter night in 1910, a 600-pound meteorite lying on a sidewalk in Carrington disappeared and was never seen again. Thousands of meteors enter Earth’s atmosphere every single day, but only a few survive to actually hit the dirt. On this date in 1992, for example, thousands of people heard a sonic boom, then watched as a meteor burst into flames and streaked across eastern skies. As the meteor hurtled toward New York, more than a dozen people captured it on film. Before falling into Peekskill, 50 miles north of New Yor...
Sept. 26, 2018 — Kenneth Charging, a 1946 Elbowoods graduate, entered the military in late 1950 or early 1951. Following five or six weeks of training, he spent a short furlough with his family and was then shipped to the front lines in Korea. Serving with the 19th Infantry Regiment of the 24th Infantry Division, Charging disappeared during battle on April 26, 1951. Back home, Charging’s family learned he was listed as missing in action on June 6. The family remained in limbo until right before Christmas, when Charging’s name appeared on a lis...
Aug, 22, 2018 — Many a North Dakota farmer has helplessly watched a promising crop get hailed out. In August of 1912, a 10-mile wide hailstorm swept from the northeast to the southwest, hitting the town of St. Thomas. A Towner County news story read, “Practically all of the windows in St. Thomas were broken by the hailstones, while the wind worked havoc with some of the poorly constructed buildings. The roof of the livery barn was blown off and several other buildings were blown down. A number of granaries on farms in that territory were als...
August 9, 2018 — A historic rail disaster happened at 7:20 p.m. on this date in 1945 at Michigan, N.D., about 50 miles west of Grand Forks. The first section of a Great Northern passenger train had to make an emergency stop, and the engine of section two plowed into it from behind. The two Empire Builders were traveling to the west coast as a pair. The first section contained the Pullman sleeper cars, with 237 aboard, and the second section carried between 600 and 700 in coach cars. A new crew came on at Fargo that afternoon, with section o...
July 30, 2018 — Smallpox decimated the Mandan tribe in 1837. When Chief Four Bears died on July 30, artist George Caitlin wrote: “This fine fellow...watched every one of his family die about him, his wives and his children... when he walked out, around the village, and wept over the final destruction of his tribe; his braves and warriors all laid low; when he came back to his lodge, where he covered his whole family with a number of robes, and wrapping another around himself, went out upon a hill at a little distance, where he laid for sev...
July 23, 2018 — In the spring of 1890, William Regcraft found some bones while digging a ditch on his uncle’s farm one mile from Highgate, Ontario. A hardware merchant named William Hillhouse bought the bones, and he and his uncle, John Jelly, also bought the right to continue excavation. What they found was almost an entire skeleton of an Ice-Age mastodon, a relative of the modern elephant. Hillhouse and Jelly cleaned the bones and strengthened them with two layers of hot white glue. The one and only tusk, described as a “perfect beaut...
July 9, 2018 — It was on this date in 1992 that one of the greatest newsmen of the 20th century died. Eric Sevareid’s career spanned 38 years, during which he shared the CBS Evening News with another broadcasting icon, Walter Cronkite. Sevareid was born in 1912 and grew up in Velva, N.D. He wanted to be a journalist and worked as a typesetter for the local paper. After graduating from high school, he wrote what one reviewer called, “a surprisingly good book about his hair-raising 2,000-mile canoe-trip to Hudson Bay.” While attending the Uni...
June 29, 2018 — Limpy Jack Clayton died in a Jamestown hospital on this day in 1893. During his 60 years of wandering, Limpy made news wherever he went. He was described as a gambler, horse thief, a Stutsman County Attorney, gunman, saloon keeper, Civil War veteran, Indian fighter, stagecoach driver, whiskey trader and the secretary of the Sunday school. Major Dana Wright, called him an “all-around useful citizen.” Clayton’s past is sketchy, but it’s believed he grew up as John Hamilton in Troy or Schenectady, N.Y. In about 1871, he drifted i...
June 21, 2018 — It was on this date in 1896 that Dorothy Hayes Stickney was born in Dickinson. She was the daughter of Victor Hugo Stickney, also known as the “cowboy doctor.” Dorothy was the younger of two children, and before she was even a year old , it appeared she was having vision problems. Her parents took her to a specialist in St. Paul, who immediately performed the first of seven operations she would have to undergo for ulcers on her corneas. Vision problems plagued Dorothy until she was finally healed at age 18; until that time,...
June 13, 2018 — One of Abraham Lincoln’s personal bodyguards was Smith Stimmel, who later practiced law in North Dakota. In his book, “Personal Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln,” he wrote that the president’s hat was always dented and messed up. One evening he learned why. As Stimmel accompanied Lincoln’s carriage to his summer home, they met a military officer on horseback. The officer recognized Lincoln and lifted his hat in a graceful salute. Lincoln was busy with some papers and didn’t see the salute until the last second. “He threw up...
