Chapter IV: Highways and Trails (6)

With the beginning of settlement newspapers sprang up quickly in the other new towns of Dakota, so that when North Dakota was admitted to the Union in 1889, it had 125 periodicals. Many so-called newspapers were nothing more than a final proof-sheet, printed in order that settlers might comply with the homesteading law which required publication of notice of final claim. The cost of establishing such a paper was slight. Official notices, an occasional advertisement, and a few local news items were all it contained. If the editor could win the favor of the United States Land Office registrar, who usually designated the official paper, he might obtain one hundred or more notices an issue; these at $5 each made his income quite substantial. Often the paper was short-lived, but the editor usually remained in the State, setting up his type cases and presses in some promising small town and starting an actual weekly paper. Many villages had two or more rival papers for a time, and the number of publications increased rapidly; in 1904 there were 265 in the State, and in 1919 a high of 336 was reached. The weekly papers were widely read and often had great political influence.

Improved transportation facilities, however, led to the retreat of the weeklies before the increasing circulation of the daily papers. North Dakota now has 196 publications including 11 dailies and 4 trade journals.

Always active in the political life of the State, the newspapers have been an especially important factor in the Nonpartisan League fight. With the daily press usually unanimously opposed to its program, the league has purchased weeklies through which it has exercised a great influence on the rural population. Although it does not control as many weeklies now as it formerly did, it still has a strong hand in the editorial policies of many papers in the State.

In May 1922, less than two years after the first radio broadcast in the United States had been put on the air by KDKA in Pittsburgh, WDAY of Fargo presented the first commercial broadcast in North Dakota. The State now has seven other stations, situated in Bismarck, Grand Forks, Minot, Devils Lake, Mandan, Valley City, and Jamestown.

KFJM in Grand Forks is one of the few stations in the United States owned by a State university. It is leased to private operators with the provision that its facilities be at the disposal of the school for special broadcasts and experimental work (_see_ GRAND FORKS).

The radio has made an important contribution to the State service by broadcasting information on weather conditions whenever necessary. Lives and thousands of dollars in property have been saved by warnings of spring floods. During the winter months frequent weather and highway reports are given, and warnings sent out regarding advisability of sending children to school during storms or extremely cold weather. In November 1930 an unusual service was performed by the Fargo and Bismarck stations. Heavy coatings of sleet had broken down telephone and telegraph wires throughout the State, and severed all communication between Fargo and Jamestown, division points on the Northern Pacific. During the first afternoon of the storm short-wave communication was established between the Fargo transmitter and an amateur set at Jamestown, but after sunset interference forced abandonment of this broadcast. Receiving sets were quickly installed at the studios of the Fargo and Bismarck stations, making possible a two-way conversation. On the one available telephone connection between Jamestown and Bismarck the dispatchers' office in Jamestown was hooked up with the Bismarck studio, in Fargo the dispatcher was linked with WDAY, and for two days all trains on the line were dispatched by radio. Between train orders the facilities of both stations were turned over to the telegraph offices, and Fargo alone sent out more than 200 messages.

Several amateur stations were in operation before any commercial broadcasting had been done in North Dakota. When the convention of the Dakota Division of the American Radio Relay League was held in Fargo in 1936, there were 300 licensed operators in attendance, and each year finds an increased number of people selecting short-wave broadcasting as a hobby.

ARCHITECTURE

The buildings of North Dakota cling closely to the low, tranquil landscape of the State, avoiding exposure to the cold northwest winds that sweep across the snowy prairie in winter. Farms and towns huddle in valleys or hug the open plain, and only grain elevators dare to break the comfortable horizontality of the prevailing contours. In the few cities a tendency can be noted toward height in buildings, but the number of skyscrapers in North Dakota can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Despite this relatively small number one skyscraper, the State Capitol (designed by Joseph B. DeRemer and William F. Kurke, and Holabird and Root, associates), has aroused more interest and comment than any other building in the history of the State. This interest has not been confined to the borders of North Dakota, for the "slender shaft of modernity" which dominates the Bismarck skyline represents a trend in the architecture of State capitols that is gaining the attention of the entire Nation. Because the basic reasons for the skyscraper--exaggerated land values and proximity to transportation centers--are utterly lacking in this capacious prairie State, much criticism has been directed at the type of statehouse chosen. Nevertheless the point is made that the character and purpose of the building as the seat of State government are well expressed in the impressive height and dignity of its lines, while at the same time the structure is decidedly utilitarian. (_See_ BISMARCK.)

Utilitarianism characterized the architecture of this region before even the earliest white explorations took place. When Verendrye visited the Mandan Indians along the Missouri in 1738 he found them living in well-built lodges made of earth packed over a framework of logs, comfortably cool in summer and warm in winter. The lodge was constructed of native materials and suited the settled agricultural life of the Mandans. In the same way the easily moved skin tipi of the nomadic Sioux whom the early explorers found to the east of the Missouri was well suited to their wandering mode of life.

The fur traders were the first white people to build in this region, and, like the Indians, they made use of native materials. Their posts, usually on the rivers where timber was available, were rough affairs of untrimmed logs, roofed with dirt laid over a timber framework, with the earth for a floor. Like the Indians of the Missouri Valley, the traders put up log stockades around their posts to ward off attacks of hostile natives.

The settlers who followed the traders into this country also made use of the trees which grew along the streams, but as settlement began to penetrate the unforested interior of the State the earth itself provided building material for frontier homes. A furrow some three inches deep was plowed into a tough sod containing many grass roots, and the broken sod was cut into lengths the width of the wall, up to two and a half feet. One row of blocks was laid lengthwise of the wall and the next crosswise, with the joints staggered as in laying bricks. The finished wall provided a strong, thick barrier against summer heat and winter cold. The roof, like that of many log houses, was of poles covered with brush, often finished with overlapping strips of sod. Sometimes these sod roofs actually bloomed in the spring as their many roots came to life, and one pioneer told of the small poles which formed the framework of his roof leafing out inside the house in midwinter.

Improved transportation brought lumber into North Dakota, and frame shanties and houses were built. The red barn took a prominent place on the farm, and the silo, for storing fodder, reared its vertical mass, sometimes dwarfing even the windmill its revolving silvery fins. Except for the more affluent farms, where the homes sometimes boasted as many as 12 rooms and a porch, the farmhouses followed an uninspired cycle of rectangular or L-shaped frame structures, often with a lean-to shed at the back for storing wood or coal. On Russo-German farms in the southern and western parts of the State a European love of color asserted itself as houses were painted sky blue or nile green or pink, and color combinations such as red, white, and blue formed a pattern of diagonal stripes on the barn or granary door.

In each township appeared the one-room country school, usually white or light green in color, with its three windows on each side, coal shed and door in one end, chimney and black board in the other, and possibly a bell tower over the door. The early school was not only a seat of learning, it was also the community center, where a Saturday night basket social might be followed by church services the next morning.

As the stories of rich land and the lure of the frontier brought more people to this region, small towns grew up on the prairie, most of them consisting of one business street and a few residential streets. Along the wooden sidewalks of Main Street the false-front building predominated, its frame facade rising a half story or more above its roof. The motive for constructing the false-front building may have been to provide space for a sign, or it may have been merely to "put on front" literally as well as figuratively. Often the sole brick building in the young North Dakota town housed the bank, and the hotel could be easily identified by its porches. Near the railroad track was the long gable roof depot of dark red, dark green, or yellow trimmed in red. The school was a boxlike white frame structure topped with a bell tower, and every town had at least one rectangular, white, gable roof church with windows in either side and a steeple and bell on the entrance facade. Residences varied from tar-paper shanties to the ornate, gabled, towered mansion of the eighties.

Dominating the silhouette of these little villages were the grain elevators, those bright sentinels which symbolized the reason for the towns' founding, and still remain the most typical buildings in the North Dakota picture today. Like tall men standing head and shoulders above a crowd, they rise 60 to 70 feet above the low prairie. First glimpsed as any town comes into sight is the row of wedge-shaped cupolas, like arrowheads in profile, topping the almost square red, green, or maroon shafts. On the side opposite the railroad track, along which the elevators are lined, each building has its one-story scalehouse, where the trucks and wagons dump their loads of grain. A few feet from the scalehouse is the small rectangular power house and office building.

As towns have prospered, brick buildings have come into use in the business sections, and new homes of bungalow, Colonial, old English, Spanish, and other modified styles have been built. Leaving behind the era of metal fronts, towers, and domes, public buildings are emerging in neoclassic, Gothic, Colonial, and modern architecture. The little white churches have given way in many instances to stone and brick structures varying in design from Gothic to modern, the United Lutheran Church in Grand Forks being an example of the latter. The schools have shown perhaps the greatest development of any type of building, and most towns now have well-designed modern schools which often serve as community centers.

Native building materials are becoming more popular in North Dakota, and each year an increasing amount of construction utilizes native-made brick and locally quarried sandstone. An interesting development in the use of native materials is the rammed-earth building, the walls of which consist of earth tamped until it is hard as rock. A house and garage of this construction erected on the Scoria Lily ranch near Hettinger (_see Tour 9_), because of their unusually low building cost, have attracted wide attention. The use of native boulders as a building material is well illustrated in the Cairn, home of Mr. and Mrs. Clell G. Gannon in Bismarck.

Even with these attempts there is no native North Dakota architecture. The schools, farms, grain elevators, and false-front business buildings are common to the entire Midwest. Many of these, although old, do not mellow, but have an air of impermanence, as though intended to serve only until something better came along. A few houses, on the other hand, follow the good, substantial precedent of the older Eastern homes of the country. New buildings which go up represent a variety of forms, a constant flux in ideas.

As evinced by buildings ranging from statehouse to filling stations, North Dakota is architecturally in an irresolute frame of mind, striving, willing to try anything suggested, yet unable, to date, to evolve from these many trials a distinctive architectural contribution of its own.

RECREATION

North Dakota offers many diverse forms of recreation among scenes varying from the spectacle of the fantastically carved Badlands to the severe beauty of the far reaching prairies. The Badlands are probably the best known recreation area of the State. Here the two Roosevelt Regional State Parks have been set aside, and many miles of bridle paths and automobile roads are being built. The strangely colored buttes form one of the most unusual scenic and geologic areas in the United States, and contain endless treasures of petrified wood and fossils of prehistoric plant and animal life.

More conventional is the beauty of the wooded Turtle Mountains, where many attractive lakes provide swimming, fishing, and boating. In the woods are countless varieties of wild flowers, and many species of song birds. Of the many lakes in the Turtle Mountains, the largest and best known are Metigoshe in the northwest part of the hills and Upsilon in the east. Here well-equipped resorts have been established for the accommodation of summer visitors.

Lakes are scattered through the region south of the Turtle Mountains, and provide the main source of summer recreation in that area. Devils Lake, formerly the principal resort in the State, still attracts many visitors each year; and other lakes, especially Spiritwood near Jamestown, are becoming popular. Some North Dakota lakes offer good fishing, being stocked with pike, crappies, sunfish, black bass, and rock bass. The rivers also yield pike, perch, and sunfish, as well as catfish and pickerel.

For the Indians who once inhabited this region, hunting the buffalo was an activity in which the entire community participated. The buffalo had almost disappeared when a young man named Theodore Roosevelt came to Dakota from the East to regain his health; but big game was still plentiful, for his books tell of hunting not only bison, but also deer, mountain sheep, elk, antelope, wolf, coyote, and grizzly bear. Despite the vanishing of the big game, North Dakota still has excellent hunting. In the wooded areas of the Missouri and Mouse River valleys and among the Turtle and Pembina Mountains, deer may be hunted during open seasons. Coyotes are present, as the long dreary wail heard on the western prairies on a still night testifies; an interesting sport is shooting them from airplanes. Many such small animals as the prairie dog, gopher, squirrel, and rabbit provide popular sport; and the alert hunter may even bag a red fox, for these crafty animals can still be found in the broken country where there is cover.

Because migratory flocks pass over the State flying south in the fall, and because the many sloughs, swamps, and shallow lakes form ideal breeding and feeding places, North Dakota has an abundance of game birds. Duck hunting is particularly good in the north and central regions; the southeast section of the State is best for pheasant hunting; and prairie chicken and grouse are also plentiful throughout the State. Sportsmen's clubs have taken an active part in the protection of game birds, providing food for them in winter and sponsoring projects to give them more adequate shelter. Through the efforts of these clubs, several artificial lakes have been created: a typical project is Lake Ardoch, where melted winter snows are impounded to form a home for migratory waterfowl.

The climate of North Dakota is conducive to winter sports. Skating, sleighing, and tobogganing have always been popular, and in recent years many fine ski slides have been built and tournaments held annually. Hockey and curling have many followers. Figure skating, formerly regarded as a professional achievement, has also become popular, and many clubs have been formed. The frozen rivers and snow-covered fields are excellent for ski and snowshoe hikes. In the larger cities gala winter-sports carnivals of competitive and exhibition events are held each year, with entries from this State, Minnesota, and Canada; they are particularly interesting because of their international character. Snow modeling is one of the recent items added to the list of contests, and the varicolored snow statues add a festive appearance to the parks in which the carnivals are held.

Hiking is a favorite sport the year round, and is the only way many interesting but otherwise inaccessible spots in the Badlands, the Turtle and Killdeer Mountains, and in the many State parks can be reached.

On the Indian reservations, glimpses are afforded of a people who, despite a certain degree of assimilation, remain apart from the white civilization that has surrounded them. Special dances are performed on ceremonial occasions and at fairs. The tribal costumes are retained to some extent, particularly among the older people; many of the ancient methods of cooking, weaving, beadwork, and basketry can be seen, and articles of handicraft purchased.

North Dakota is rich in remains of early Indian life. Mounds and village and camp sites yield arrowheads, stone implements, enigmatic petroglyphs, beads, and pottery. Old trails of early white explorers, soldiers, and home seekers can still be traced in many places, despite the fact that large areas have been plowed up.

Of the numerous fairs and agricultural exhibits held throughout the State, probably the most interesting to the tourist are those in the western counties, where rodeos are usually a part of the program. The rodeo (pronounced ro´-deo in North Dakota) customarily is held in a large arena surrounded by a stout fence. The most dangerous sports are riding the "bucking broncs" and "bulldogging"; in the latter, the rider throws himself from his horse to the neck of a running steer, grasps its horns and twists its head in an effort to stop the animal and throw it to the ground, all in the shortest possible length of time. Other events often included are roping running calves; Roman races, in which the contestant stands on the saddles of two horses running double with their bits tied together; and wild-cow milking contests, in which one contestant must draw a half cup of milk from a wild cow while his partner holds the animal. Typical rodeos are held each year in connection with the fairs at Elbowoods and Fort Yates, where interest is increased by the large number of Indians who participate in the contests.

Spectator sports are to be found in almost every town, and include baseball, diamond or soft ball, basketball, football, golf, tennis, track events, boxing tournaments, and horseshoe pitching.

Drawing by a soldier who participated in the engagement]

Opposite
STATE CAPITOL,
BISMARCK

_Photo by Risem_]

_Photo by P. B. Rognlie_]

CITY NEIGHBORS

BISMARCK

=Railroad Stations:= Northern Pacific, Main Ave. bet. 4th and 5th
Sts., for N. P. Ry.; Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie, 117
7th St., for Soo Line.

=Bus Stations:= Union Bus & Truck Terminal, 618 Bdwy., for
Northland Greyhound Lines and Interstate Transportation Co.; Grand
Pacific Hotel, Bdwy. and 4th St., Mandan-Bismarck, for local
intercity line, fare 25c.

=Airport:= Municipal airport, 2 m. SE. of city on unmarked county
road, taxi fare 50c, time 10 min., for Northwest and Hanford
Airlines. Day and night service, no public hangars.

=Taxis:= Fare 25c in first zone and to Capitol; 35c to outlying
districts.

=City Bus Line:= Busses leave Patterson Hotel, Main Ave. at 5th
St. and cor. of 4th St. and Bdwy., through residential district to
Capitol, fare 10c.

=Traffic Regulations:= No U-turn on through streets, Main Ave. (US
10) and 6th St. (US 83). Turns in either direction at intersections
and vehicle to the right has right-of-way. One-way streets border
Custer Park in W. end of city. Street signs show hour parking
limits in business district.

=Accommodations:= 6 hotels; tourist camp adjoining Riverside Park
at SW. edge of city, reached by turning L. on US 10 just before
reaching Liberty Memorial Bridge.

=Information Service:= Association of Commerce, 215 6th St. City
Hostess maintains office here also.

=Theaters and Motion Picture Houses:= Bismarck Auditorium, Bdwy.
at 6th St., occasional road shows and local productions; 3 motion
picture theaters.

=Golf:= 18-hole course at Country Club on NW. outskirts of city
(_greens fee 40c, Sat. and Sun. 75c_).

=Tennis:= Country Club and Hughes Field, 316 Ave. D, W.

=Swimming:= Outdoor municipal pool, 323 W. Bdwy.

=Skating:= Floodlighted rinks at 7th St. and Ave. D, 4th St. and
Ave. F, Hannafin St. and Ave. A.

=Hunting and Fishing:= Information can be obtained from State Game
and Fish Department in the Capitol.

=Annual Events:= Slope Poultry Show, World War Memorial Bldg.,
early January; State high school basketball tournament, World
War Memorial Bldg., 215 6th St., March, no fixed date; State Art
Exhibit, Capitol, mid-May; City Flower show, World War Memorial
Bldg., late summer, usually August; State Corn Show, World War
Memorial Bldg., last week in October.

BISMARCK (1,670 alt., 11,090 pop.), Burleigh County seat, watched over by its lonely skyscraper statehouse, is the storm center of the State's widely known progressive politics. Ever since it won that honor in Territorial days, its chief claim to fame and most prized possession has been the capitol, which is an integral part of Bismarck, influencing its development and character more than any other single feature. From the very first the capital city showed signs of enterprise that has characterized its growth. Its name was selected with a view to flattering Germany's Iron Chancellor in the hope of bringing German capital to the rescue of the financially stricken Northern Pacific Railway.

[Map: CITY OF BISMARCK]

Bismarck is in the south-central portion of the State where the Northern Pacific Railway and US 10 cross the Missouri River. The natural ford here was long known to Indians and buffalo as one of the narrowest and least dangerous crossings on the Missouri. A "pay roll" town because of the State and Federal offices, it is a growing city despite post-boom years; 87 new homes were built during 1936. Modern business buildings constitute the downtown area, and comfortable, new, bungalow-type homes, clean streets, and well-kept lawns can be seen on the hills which not long ago were the home of Indian tribes.

The generous western spirit of the residents seems reflected in the structure of the city. Nothing is crowded. On the east bank of the restless Missouri River the site of the city is hilly, rising to the north. Gullies and small hills in the residential district have been filled in and smoothed off as the city has grown. Along the Missouri near the city cretaceous rocks are exposed. Strata of shale reaching up almost to the summit of the bank are topped with a thin layer of drift. Butte-like hills can be seen in the distance north and east of the city, their flat tops capped with Fox Hills sandstone.

In Bismarck are the headquarters of both of the old-line political parties and the various progressive groups. Hotels are the unofficial headquarters of different parties, especially when the legislature is in session. At such times, although the city is businesslike on the surface, there is an air of expectancy as it awaits new developments in the State's changing political creeds.

Pioneers of the city can still remember the first legislative session in 1889, when the lobbyists for the Louisiana Lottery poured their money into legislators' pockets, and were shadowed and exposed by private detectives hired by a Governor and his friends. Nor forgotten are the machinations of Alexander McKenzie, who represented the railroad interests in all things political, and who in later years exercised his peculiar talents in Alaska to such an extent that Rex Beach accorded him the role of villain in his novel _The Spoilers_ (_see below_). And even the young citizens recall how four governors succeeded one another in the teakwood gubernatorial office in the course of a little more than six months.

Long before the arrival of the white man, the Mandan Indians found the Bismarck-Mandan area a favorable spot for their homes. Their culture gives this vicinity an interesting archeological background (_see_ INDIANS AND THEIR PREDECESSORS). Several village sites of the Mandans and Hidatsa are in this vicinity, and a full-sized model of an earth lodge is constructed on the Capitol grounds. Artifacts, including implements of warfare and agriculture, pottery, and beads, were recovered in these sites and are preserved in the museum of the State historical society.

French fur traders, Lewis and Clark, Prince Paul of Wurttemberg, Maximilian, Prince of Wied, and many another early adventurer and explorer passed the site of Bismarck in voyages up the Missouri, but squatters, anticipating the westward path of the Northern Pacific Railway, were the first to settle this vicinity, in the winter of 1871-72. During construction of the railroad a settlement called Burleightown, named for Dr. Walter Burleigh of the Northern Pacific Company, grew up near where Fort Lincoln stands. At the end of the railroad grade on the bank of the Missouri, just opposite Fort McKeen, was a tent-town called Carleton City, later called Point Pleasant, and known to the soldiers of the fort as Whiskey Point.

The site of the city was originally occupied by Camp Greeley, later known as Camp Hancock, a military post established in 1872 for the protection of railroad crews. One of the log buildings of the post is incorporated into the United States Weather Bureau at 101 Main Avenue, the original post site, and is the oldest building in Bismarck.

In 1860 river transportation had begun on the upper Missouri, opening a vast new region to settlement. During this period at least fifty cargoes were being discharged yearly at Fort Benton in Montana, while it required a fleet of some thirty or more vessels to transport troops and carry supplies to the various posts, forts, and Indian agencies in the Missouri basin. The "Crossing on the Missouri" became a stirring steamboat port, attracting many rivermen and wood choppers. The latter served an industry of extensive proportions, since wood supplied all fuel needs for boats on the river and for the military posts and agencies.

The flooding of the flats near Burleightown each spring threatened danger for the railroad grade, however, and this is thought to have been the ostensible reason for changing the route in 1873; actually, the change was probably made to keep land grabbers from obtaining control of the point at which the road would cross the river. A new grade was built about one mile north, running past Camp Greeley. The Lake Superior and Puget Sound Company, a town site location company auxiliary to the Northern Pacific, was then able to locate another city site which was named Edwinton for Edwin F. Johnson, Northern Pacific chief engineer, but was generally known as "The Crossing." When the Burleightown grade was left unused the town was abandoned and the inhabitants moved to Edwinton. In 1873 the name Bismarck was chosen, but the first title of the town persisted. When Mrs. Linda Slaughter became postmistress in 1874 she found it necessary to point out to the Post Office Department in Washington that mail should be addressed to "Bismarck, D. T." rather than to "The Crossing, Northern Pacific Railroad on the Missouri River, D. T."

Rails were laid into Bismarck on June 4, 1873, and it remained the terminus of the Northern Pacific until 1879. With the coming of the railroad the town became the head of navigation on the Missouri. When river traffic closed in the fall because of low water, no attempt was made to operate the Northern Pacific west of Fargo until the following spring, as the company did not have snow-fighting equipment with which to keep the road open during the winter months. Merchants had to stock up in the fall with enough goods to last until spring. Mail came once a week via a Government carrier from Fargo to Fort Abraham Lincoln. Enterprising persons sometimes came from Minnesota with loads of dressed poultry and hogs for Thanksgiving and Christmas. The trip from Fargo to Bismarck took about six days by wagon.

In early days the young town combined the advantages of a river steamboat port and a western railway terminus. A frontier town, the life of its residents was necessarily rugged. A story is told of the young son of a newspaper editor, who questioned a stranger about his family and learned that the father of the visiting gentleman had died. The youngster, familiar with the columns of his own father's paper, said, "Got shot, did he?" The stranger replied that he had not. "Drank too much whiskey?" Again the visitor replied in the negative. "Well, he can't be dead then," the boy triumphantly exclaimed, "'cause that's the only way men die in Bismarck!" There were always the few, however, who made an effort to preserve the social graces. At the first party given in Bismarck, honoring Dr. and Mrs. Slaughter on their fourth wedding anniversary, dancing was part of the entertainment, and the evening ended with refreshments of champagne and buffalo tongue sandwiches.

The first train arrived in Bismarck June 5, 1873. Part of its cargo consisted of printing presses for the Bismarck _Tribune_, which was first issued July 11, 1873, and continues publication as North Dakota's oldest newspaper. The _Tribune's_ greatest scoop was scored in 1876 when it gave the world the story of the Custer massacre at the Little Big Horn in Montana. Mark Kellogg, reporter for the _Tribune_ and New York _Herald_, was killed in the battle, but more than a column of notes on the battle was found in a buckskin pouch on his body. When Grant Marsh's steamer _Far West_ brought Reno's wounded and the first news of the disaster, Col. C. A. Lounsberry, founder-editor of the _Tribune_, obtained the story, wiring it to the _Herald_ at a reputed cost of $3,000 for 24 hours use of the telegraph wires.

Bismarck felt the loss of Custer's command keenly, for he and his Seventh Cavalry officers from Fort Abraham Lincoln had figured prominently in the social life of the city.

The Bismarck _Sun_, another early newspaper, had a prominent part in the exposure of Indian and military post corruption which led to the impeachment of Secretary of War William W. Belknap in 1876. James A. Emmons, publisher of the paper, issued a handbill entitled _Pirates of the Missouri_ which alleged that appointments as traders at military and Indian posts were being bought from the Secretary of War. The New York _Herald_ sent out a reporter, who obtained a position at Fort Berthold Indian Agency, incognito, and succeeded in exposing the dishonesty prevalent at almost all of the Missouri River posts. The reporter barely escaped with his life when his identity was discovered; but he returned the next year and succeeded in completing his investigation. Belknap was impeached on a charge of bribery, and resigned, but was later acquitted. The episode caused a great furore throughout the country, but particularly in Bismarck.

Gold was discovered in the Black Hills in 1874, and Bismarck experienced its first boom. A regular stagecoach and freight line was maintained to Deadwood, S. Dak. It was more than 200 air line miles cross country, with no towns between. Stations were established every 20 miles and all freight was hauled into the Black Hills by wagon, 10 or 12 yoke of "wild Montana cattle" being used to pull trains of two or three wagonloads of freight. Gold seekers flocked to Bismarck, where they outfitted their supply trains before departing for the gold fields. The Bismarck _Tribune_ of October 25, 1879, reported:

"There are no rooms available at the hotels in Bismarck tonight as
there are many transients in town bound for the Hills. Our freight
and passenger business to the gold fields has been very heavy
during the past ten days, amounting to 300,000 pounds of freight
and seventy passengers. There were also two carloads of horses
shipped in for the stage coaches. There are at present two and
sometimes three stages a day."

Gold dust and nuggets brought $20 an ounce in trade in Bismarck. Many who came to join in the gold rush stayed to take advantage of the business opportunities.

The year 1881 saw a serious flood of the Missouri River. Most Bismarck residents, with their homes up on the hills out of the river's reach, made light of the occasion, some even to the extent of an excursion. Capt. William Braithwaite ran his steamer _Eclipse_ to the foot of Third Street where passengers boarded for a trip to nearby Mandan, the greater part of which, like the five miles of river bottom land between the two towns, was under water. It is reported that everyone on the boat "danced and had a good time." Not so pleasant, however, were the experiences of those who lived in the lowlands. The flood came upon them suddenly, drowning their horses and cattle, inundating their homes, and forcing many to climb trees. Perched above the muddy, swirling waters and floating cakes of ice, several of these unfortunates froze their hands and feet or otherwise suffered from exposure. Wildlife also suffered because of the flood, and deer and other game could be seen floating down the river on cakes of ice.

The Northern Pacific railroad bridge across the Missouri was completed in 1882. Previous to this time the trains had crossed the river on barges in the summer and on tracks laid on the ice in winter.

When the Territorial capital was removed from Yankton, S. Dak., to Bismarck in 1883 the city experienced a second boom. Land prices skyrocketed, and blocks of lots often changed hands several times in an incredibly short period, since it was fondly, if erroneously, anticipated that Bismarck would have a phenomenal growth and would soon outrank many well-established and populous cities. The cornerstone of the capitol building was laid that year at an elaborate ceremony attended by members of the Golden Spike Excursion who were on their way west to celebrate the completion of the Northern Pacific Railway. Headed by ex-President Grant and Henry Villard, president of the Northern Pacific, there was present a galaxy of prominent Americans including Sitting Bull and numerous foreign dignitaries and noblemen. These notable guests spent some time in Bismarck and every effort was exerted to make their stay eventful. One young woman went so far as to painstakingly decorate her apple tree with three bushels of apples purchased at a local grocery store. Showing it to her admiring guests the next day she asked, "What do you think of this for a fruit-growing country?" "Magnificent, magnificent!" Grant replied, "I am surprised, wonderfully surprised!" So were townsmen standing nearby, but they held their tongues.

Since these early booms the growth of the city has not been remarkable, but it has been steady. A large factor in the prosperity of Bismarck has been the numerous Federal and State institutions and offices.

Bismarck's first church service was held on June 15, 1873, although Mrs. Linda W. Slaughter organized a Sunday school in a Camp Hancock tent as early as August of the previous year. The first church in the city was the Presbyterian, at 303 Second Street. When the Catholic church was built in 1898 the Marquise de Mores gave a large stained glass window in honor of her late husband. The window, portraying the Immaculate Conception, bears his name and is in the front of the church in the choir loft. Fourteen religious denominations are represented in Bismarck.

Two hospitals and several clinics serve both the urban population and a large rural area. Radio station KFYR, with studios at 200 Fourth Street, is an associate member of the National Broadcasting Company and operates on 5,000-watt power during the day and 1,000 at night. Four newspapers in addition to the _Tribune_ are published in Bismarck: Two semi-weeklies, the Bismarck _Capital_ and _Der Staats Anzeiger_ (German); and two weeklies, the _Leader_, organ of the Nonpartisan League, and the Dakota _Freie Presse_ (German). Bismarck and its surrounding territory have a large German and Russo-German population.

The city was the home of James W. Foley, North Dakota poet, during his school days, and later he was a member of the Bismarck _Tribune_ staff. His numerous books include _Prairie Breezes_ and _Voices of Song_.

Although Bismarck is in the heart of the spring wheat region, where four times more acres are planted in wheat than any other crop, the city's industrial life is subordinate to its political. Commercially it is a wholesale distributing point for many State or district offices of various lines of merchandise. In addition there are flour mills, creameries, grain elevators, and seed-houses. A pioneer seed-house and nursery, the Oscar H. Will Company, founded in Bismarck in 1881, is the largest concern of its kind in the State. Specializing in seed corn, in which it followed the example of the agricultural Mandan Indians, the company has propagated many new, and acclimated several established, varieties of plants, grain, and nursery stock that are exceptionally hardy, drought resisting, and quick maturing. North of Bismarck are extensive lignite coal deposits, with one of the largest strip mines in the State in north Burleigh County, near Wilton.

In 1903 several thousand farmers of German extraction migrated from Wisconsin to settle the farm lands in the Bismarck territory. They have made the city a shipping point for a constantly increasing dairy, wool, honey, and corn output. The drought conditions of the 1930's have cut into agricultural production, but have intensified recognition of the need for diversified farming, which is more widely practiced each year.

One of the most notable events of recent years was the burning of the old capitol in December 1930. The year following there was talk of capital removal, the most serious contender being the city of Jamestown, 100 miles to the east. In the election of 1932, however, popular vote decided in favor of retaining the site at Bismarck, and on October 8 that year Vice President Charles M. Curtis laid the cornerstone of the new statehouse.

POINTS OF INTEREST

1. The 19 stories of the STATE CAPITOL (_open weekdays 9-5; guide_), N. end of 6th St., high on Capitol Hill, overlook the city and the broad Missouri valley. The white shaft is an impressive sight even to those who quarrel with the idea of a skyscraper capitol for a prairie State. Designed in 1932 by two North Dakota architects, Joseph Bell de Remer of Grand Forks and William F. Kurke of Fargo, with Holabird and Root of Chicago as associates, its clean hard modern lines are exponent of the fact that, as the architect F. A. Gutheim has said, "Domed pseudo-Renaissance state capitols are sinking low on the Western horizon." North Dakota has followed the example of Nebraska and Louisiana in building what may be a forerunner of a new and distinctive style of State capitols.

The possibility of architectural developments from this building does not, however, deter critics who find it difficult to reconcile the skyscraper with the prairies. The customary objection is that those conditions which are the _raison d'etre_ of the skyscraper--high land values and congestion at transportation centers--are decidedly absent in Bismarck. The justification of the building, therefore, must lie in its expression of the dignity and power of the State government.

Despite criticism, the Capitol has its defenders, who feel the strength and height of the structure to be expressive of its intent. And no matter what the decision may be on the architectural problem, the building at any rate fulfills its utilitarian function: it is one of the most efficiently built government buildings in the country. It provides space for approximately one thousand State and Federal employees. The asymmetrical tower arrangement allows complete separation of the executive and legislative branches of the State, and despite differences of opinion as to the exterior of the building, opinion is general that the interior is both remarkable and beautiful.

The building houses State administrative offices in the tower and the State legislature in the circular three-story wing. The two sections of the structure are joined by Memorial Hall. The outer walls of the entire building are faced with Bedford limestone, and the base is trimmed with a broad ribbon of Rosetta black granite (gabbro), a relatively rare stone of volcanic origin.

A sweeping flight of steps leads to the plaza, above which rise the huge bronze-framed windows of Memorial Hall, topped with symbolic bronze figures representing the Indian, Hunter, Trapper, Farmer, Miner, and the Mothers of the State. These figures, as well as others in the interior of the building, are the work of Edgar Miller of Chicago.

The building can be entered from the plaza or on the ground floor through the porte-cochère. The ground floor corridor is wainscoted in rosy-tan Montana travertine. In the lobby is the custodian's desk where visitors register. From this point tours of the building leave hourly. To the right is the elevator lobby, where the sliding bronze elevator doors depict the Indian, the Hunter, the Cowhand, and other figures symbolic of the development of the State. At the end of the elevator lobby is the capitol café.

Steps ascending from the ground floor in a stairwell of highly polished black Belgian marble lead directly into Memorial Hall, which, although 342 ft. long, 25 ft. wide, and 42 ft. high, appears even more spacious with its 10 tall fluted bronze columns lining either side and catching the sunlight which floods through the tall windows of the facade. The walls are of polished Montana travertine and the floors of gray-white Tennessee marble. From the windows in the facade there is a beautiful view of the city, the winding Missouri, and the hazy blue bluffs beyond.

The legislative foyer, a continuation of Memorial Hall into the three-story wing, is paneled in rosewood and curly maple. Inlaid canopies project over upholstered wall seats. Both the House of Representatives (L) and the Senate Chamber (R) are semicircular in design. Paneling of matched chestnut adorns the walls of the House, and the floor and ceiling are blue. An indirect lighting and ventilation system is concealed in the coves of the ceiling. The Senate Chamber, somewhat smaller than the House, has been judged one of the most beautiful rooms in the United States. It is paneled in a rich brown English oak with bronze cross stripes covering the joinings. The ceiling and floor are brown and the chairs are upholstered in cream-colored leather.

At the end of Memorial Hall opposite the legislative foyer are the offices of the governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. In the governor's suite the reception room is paneled in laurelwood, the private office of the governor in teakwood, the corridor in prima vera, and the conference room in mahogany.

The second floor of the tower is occupied by the supreme court. The dignified courtroom is paneled in rosewood, the judges' conference room is finished in walnut, and Honduras mahogany is used in the office of the chief justice. The supreme court law library of 50,000 volumes occupies two large rooms. A fine view of Memorial Hall can be obtained from the supreme court elevator lobby, which faces directly on the hall.

Above the second floor of the tower are other State offices. The eighteenth floor is designed as an observation tower, which affords a panoramic view of the entire Bismarck-Mandan vicinity, taking in Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park, Fort Lincoln, the State Penitentiary, the curving river with its wooded lowlands, the gray-blue bluffs beyond, and, all around, the rolling prairie.

2. LIBERTY MEMORIAL BUILDING (_open weekdays 9-5_), SE. of the Capitol, a memorial to World War dead, designed in 1921 by Keith and Kurke of Fargo, houses the North Dakota State Library Commission, State Historical Society of North Dakota, and its museum and library. A four-story structure of Classic design, with a base of Minnesota granite and walls of Bedford limestone, its Ionic columns rise gracefully above the grass-covered terrace.

The massive bronze doors of the west facade lead into a corridor paneled in Italian travertine with a trim of Kasota stone. The graceful double stairway which rises across the corridor has marble balustrades and travertine newel posts.

Left of the stairway is the historical society library exhibit room, and right is the State library commission which has general supervision of all public libraries in the State.

On the ground floor are the main offices of the State historical society library. The offices of the historical society are on the second floor. This society was founded in 1887, became a State department in 1905, and in addition to its work in collecting and preserving historical material has been especially active in building up the 46 State parks and historical sites.

The HISTORICAL SOCIETY MUSEUM, on the second and third floors of the Memorial Building, contains excellent collections of North Dakota material. The Indian collection gives a complete picture of the life of the North Dakota Indian, showing examples of clothing, cooking utensils, pottery, knives, drums, saddles, war clubs, bows and arrows, canoe, and bullboat. It also includes many archeological finds made in the State.

In the pioneer rooms are relics of early days of white settlement of the State. A military collection shows many types of guns and cannon in use since settlement. The natural history rooms contain fine displays of flora and fauna, fossils and minerals.

An equestrian statue of Theodore Roosevelt, the plaster model by A. Phimister Proctor for the statue in Roosevelt Park in Minot (_see_ MINOT), is on the third floor, and nearby is the desk which Roosevelt used for most of his writing at his Badlands ranch. Many models of early forts, Indian villages, and river steamboats are on display.

A bronze STATUE OF SAKAKAWEA stands on the lawn between the statehouse and the Liberty Memorial Building. Sakakawea was the Shoshone Bird Woman who led the Lewis and Clark expedition through the unexplored mountainous Northwest to the Pacific Ocean. The statue, by Leonard Crunelle (1910), depicts the Indian woman with her baby strapped to her back, looking westward toward the country she helped to open.

Unsung during her lifetime, Sakakawea in recent years has been recognized as the outstanding woman in the development of the Northwest. Carrying her new-born son, Baptiste, she joined the expedition at the Mandan village near the present site of Stanton, N. Dak. She accompanied the party with her husband, Touissant Charbonneau, who had been engaged as an interpreter. Soon she proved to be the most valuable member of the party. Her services were those of guide, cook, and general emissary to the Indian tribes encountered on the journey. Lewis and Clark credited her with the success of their expedition.

On the return of the exploring party Sakakawea, Baptiste, and Charbonneau were left at the Mandan village where they had joined the expedition more than a year earlier. Mystery and controversy obscure the lives of the Indian woman and her son from this point. Sakakawea is believed by some to have died on the Shoshone Reservation at Wind River, Wyo., when almost 100 years of age. Others hold that she died at Fort Manuel on the Grand River in South Dakota only a few years after the return of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Painstaking investigation has definitely proved neither theory.

Of Baptiste it is known that he was educated by Capt. William Clark at St. Louis. Returning to the Northwest, he became an interpreter like his father, and met Paul Wilhelm, Prince of Wurttemberg, who was exploring North America. With the German nobleman he went to Europe, but on his return his path is lost to the historian. He may have been with his mother on the Wind River Reservation--if, indeed, she died there.

The PROW OF THE BATTLESHIP _North Dakota_, mounted on a boulder of native granite, stands N. of the Memorial Building, near the statue of Sakakawea. To the south of the building stands a large Krupp gun, assigned to the State by the Federal Government as a trophy of the World War. Near these guns lie specimens of Cannonball River sandstone formations.

3. ROOSEVELT CABIN (_open June 15-Sept. 15, weekdays 10-5, Sun. 2-5_), E. of Memorial Building, was the home of Theodore Roosevelt from 1883 to 1885, when he was a rancher in the North Dakota Badlands. Known as the Maltese Cross because of its cattle brand, the ranch was renamed by Roosevelt for nearby Chimney Butte.

The cabin originally had a much steeper, shingle roof, but a later owner replaced this with a sod one, hoping to make the building warmer. The interior furnishings are copies of those used by "Teddy," although the cook stove is thought to be the original. Much Rooseveltiana, including books and guns, is preserved in the cabin.

In 1904 the Chimney Butte cabin was purchased by the North Dakota Commission, and sent to the St. Louis World's Fair of that year, to Portland, Ore., for the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in 1905, and then to Bismarck where it was placed on the grounds in front of the Capitol, and after a few years was moved to its present site. An iron gate, handwrought by Haile Chisholm of the North Dakota Agricultural College faculty, depicts the initial letters of the various fields of enterprise in which Roosevelt engaged.

4. EARTH LODGE (_open weekdays 9-5 June 15-Oct. 1_), N. of the Roosevelt Cabin, is a reproduction of the dwellings of the Mandan, Arikara, and Hidatsa, the agricultural tribes who inhabited the valley of the Missouri previous to white settlement of this region. (For description of the earth lodge see INDIANS AND THEIR PREDECESSORS.) The lodge was built by the State historical society under the direction of Scattered Corn, a Mandan woman, the daughter of Moves Slowly, last of the Mandan Corn priests.

The women of the Indian tribes built the lodges in the river villages, although the men gave them assistance in placing the heavy timbers which supported the thick earth walls. A Mandan legend relates that when the first Mandan village was built under the leadership of the tribal hero, Good Furred Robe, the First Man told them how to build the earth lodges.

5. GOVERNOR'S MANSION (_private_), 320 Ave. B, has been the residence of North Dakota Governors since 1893, when the house was purchased by the State from Asa Fisher, wealthy brewer. Governor Eli C. D. Shortridge was the first chief executive to occupy the mansion. Typical of the architecture of the Territorial day in which it was built, the two-story white frame building, with its spacious, high-ceilinged rooms and four fireplaces, has remained unchanged except for the addition of a front porch. The large elm and box elder trees were planted in 1900. During early statehood many important social functions were held in the mansion.

6. CAIRN (_private_), 912 Mandan St., home of Mr. and Mrs. Clell G. Gannon, is a small house built largely of native boulders, and designed by its owners.

7. HOME OF ALEXANDER McKENZIE (_private_), 722 5th St., a large white frame house built in the indeterminate, unpedigreed style typical of North Dakota's architecture of the nineties, remains unchanged from the days when it was the home of Alexander McKenzie (1856-1922), spectacular figure of early Bismarck and State history, master politician, ally of the railroads.

Arriving in Bismarck as a young man in the early 1870's, he soon rose to a position of civic and Territorial importance, becoming an unofficial representative of the Northern Pacific Railway. How much McKenzie had to do with moving the Territorial capital from Yankton to Bismarck will perhaps never be known. However, the fact that a Capital Commission was named and given power to move the capital, and the fact that McKenzie secured for himself a place on the commission, are credited to him as among his most able political maneuvers.

Although he held only one public office--sheriff of Burleigh County for 12 years--his influence and the so-called "McKenzie ring" survived all attacks by political reformers. He was active in State politics until his death in 1922.

8. BURLEIGH COUNTY COURTHOUSE, Thayer Ave. between 5th and 6th Sts., is a three-story modern-type building designed by Ira Rush of Minot and constructed of North Dakota concrete-brick faced with Bedford limestone, with a base of pearl pink granite. In the main floor vestibule, wainscoted in marble, is a series of murals by Clell. G. Gannon, Bismarck artist, depicting early county history. A further native note appears in the balustrading of the stairways, where grilled nickel silver forms a graceful design using the stalk, ear, and slender leaf of the corn as motif.

This is the third Burleigh County courthouse to stand on this block. A marker on the west lawn designates the site of the first, a log building built in 1873. It was replaced in 1880 by a brick structure. The present building was erected in 1930.