Dakota Datebook: Zip to Zap

May 10, 2018 — Today is anniversary of the only official riot in North Dakota state history.

It started innocently. In April of 1969, NDSU student body president Chuck Stroup couldn’t afford to go to Florida with his sister for spring break. So he came up with a cheap alternative and took it to NDSU’s school paper, "The Spectrum." He was planning a gathering near his hometown of Hazen to be held the following month. He called it “Zip to Zap” and took out a classified ad.

A responsive front-page article about the event set things in motion. It praised the beauty of the Knife River and stated that the people of Zap were welcoming the idea. The article also predicted that people from all over the Midwest would come to the “Lauderdale of the North.” UND picked up on the idea, and within weeks, Zip to Zap was being promoted nationwide as a “Grand Festival of Light and Love.”

Unprepared for such a huge response, the student organizers quickly got permission from Zap landowners to allow camping in their vacant fields. They also hired some regional bands to keep the audience entertained.

Meanwhile, Zap’s citizens were guardedly optimistic. The café started working on “Zapburgers,” and the town’s two bars stocked up on beer. Since there was no way to predict how many would attend, Governor William Guy talked with the Highway Patrol officials about traffic control, and the National Guard boned up on nationally mandated procedures for crowd control.

By Friday evening, 2,000 people descended on Zap. The bars were overwhelmed and raised their prices, upsetting the students. Pretty soon, it didn’t matter – the beer was all gone, and the café had to close. Students vomited and urinated in the open – others passed out in the street. Temperatures fell below freezing, and wood from a demolished building was used to start a bonfire on Main Street. Pretty soon, the townspeople asked the crowd to break up and go home. Some complied, but others didn’t. The party atmosphere disappeared and gradually escalated into a riot. Security was overwhelmed, and the café and one bar were broken into and trashed.

By dawn, 500 National Guardsman surrounded the town. Two hundred of them moved in and faced about 200 students who were still going. Approximately 1,000 others were sleeping wherever they had landed during the night. Their wake-up call was at the point of a fixed bayonet. Cold, hungry and hung-over, there was little resistance, and the crowd was dispersed in front of salivating reporters. That evening, the Zip to Zap fiasco was the lead story on the CBS Evening News – giving the state publicity it neither wanted or needed.

Damage from the riot was assessed at more than $25,000. A lot of fingers were pointed, but the student governments of UND and NDSU were handed the bills. Which they paid...

“Dakota Datebook” is a radio series from Prairie Public in partnership with the State Historical Society of North Dakota and with funding from the North Dakota Humanities Council. See all the Dakota Datebooks at prairiepublic.org.