DAKOTA DATEBOOK: Learning
October 14: Students in North Dakota have, throughout decades past, been subject to the changing of seasons in an agricultural state. Different farm-related chores sometimes took precedent over the classroom. You may have a parent or grandparent who was finished with school by the time they were twelve or fourteen. And it didn’t just happen here; it happened across the country.
On this day in 1925, however, the Fargo Forum reported that Cass County kids were actively seeking more of an education. Statistics from the county showed that 87 percent of the eighth-graders from Cass County had enrolled in high school. Moreover, 48 percent of high school students were set to go on for more education at normal schools and colleges.
“According to figures compiled by Miss Carolina Evingson,” county superintendent of schools, the Cass County schools had “established a record not only in North Dakota but throughout the country.”
These averages may seem low, compared with today, but in 1925, only about 60 percent of students in the United States went on to receive even a high school education. The average number of high school graduates who continued their education was a paltry 25 percent. Cass County’s average was over 20 percent better than that of the nation’s, in these categories. Definitely, that was something to be proud of.
Miss Evingson said that the reason for this “happy situation” was due to the principals and superintendents of the schools, as well as to the parents, who constantly reminded their children of “the advisability of obtaining as much education as possible” as well as the opportunities it opened for both men and women.
Twelve smaller town schools also set records by sending their entire graduating class of eighth graders to high schools in the fall. These lucky towns were Chaffee, Erie, Rose Valley, Page, Hunter, Argusville, Grandin, Hickson, Tower City, Leonard, Gardner and Kindred. Casselton was listed as a thirteenth school that was “very close to the 100 percent mark.”
And, you may wonder, what about the country towns, where there may have only been one-room school houses? Where farm kids were especially ruled by the changing of the seasons?
Well, by the time of the report’s release, 100 percent of all the eighth-grade graduates of those rural one-room schools were either preparing to enter or already had entered high school classes.
Dakota Datebook written by Sarah Walker
DAKOTA DATEBOOK: Chaffee Swindled
October 15: Herbert Chaffee became president of the Amenia and Sharon Land Company bonanza farm near Amenia, North Dakota, when his father passed away in 1892. The Chaffees believed the welfare of their workers was key to the success of the bonanza farms, but this benevolence was vulnerable to abuse.
In October 1909, a California gold miner named John Armstrong arrived at the farm in need of Chaffee’s help. The old miner said he had $40,000 of gold bullion as collateral if Chaffee would consider lending him money. The gold was in Minneapolis, and Armstrong invited Chaffee to see the gold for himself.
Armstrong, Herbert Chaffee, and Chaffee’s son Eben arrived in Minneapolis on this date in 1909. Eben Chaffee took shavings from the gold bars for analysis by a gold assayer. Armstrong claimed a jeweler had given him the name of assayer W. H. Harper, who happened to be living at the nearby Rogers Hotel.
Chaffee and his son met Mr. Harper and gave him the shavings from the miner’s bullion. Harper’s tests showed the metal was pure gold.
Chaffee cashed a $25,000 check, worth over half a million in today’s dollars, and gave Armstrong the loan in crisp $100 bills. The trio then went to dinner, but as they ate, the younger Chaffee became suspicious. He excused himself and went to find Harper, the assayer.
Armstrong, realizing the jig was up, and also left the table, saying he’d be right back. Young Chaffee found that Harper had checked out immediately after the gold was tested. The Chaffees rushed back to their hotel and found Armstrong’s room empty.
The whole process had been a scam from the beginning. Chaffee took the supposed gold to another assayer’s office, and found it to be $15 worth of brass.
Two years later, a man was arrested in California for performing the same scam on a woman in Ohio. Chaffee’s son traveled west and identified the man as none other than John Armstrong.
A few days before Armstrong’s extradition to Minnesota, a drowned body found in San Pedro Bay California was identified as Armstrong. However, the police thought the scammer was much too smart to have taken his own life, and they believed Armstrong faked his death to get away with Herbert Chaffee’s $25,000.
Dakota Datebook written by Derek Dahlsad
DAKOTA DATEBOOK: Lutefisk Shortages
October 16: Eating lutefisk is not for the faint of heart, for this peculiar Norwegian form of codfish smells to high heaven. But to Norwegian-Americans, eating snow-white, light and flaky lutefisk was a joy at holiday dinners, especially at Christmastime, as a taste of Norway for those immigrants who had left its fjords and shores for America. For non-Norwegians, the penetrating aroma of lutefisk cooking in the kitchen could make them cringe or induce them to make fun of the lye-soaked codfish.
On this date in 1941, newspapers held dire news for Norwegian-Americans in North Dakota, as a terse article announced that the holiday supply of lutefisk would have to come from Iceland, not Norway itself. The German military had invaded Norway in 1940, and the country fell under Nazi control.
Genuine lutefisk had long been prepared in northern Norway, the only place where the best conditions prevailed for properly processing the codfish pulled from the deep seawaters surrounding the Lofoten Islands. The German occupation made it difficult to get lutefisk shipments to America. Hence, lutefisk supplies had to come mainly from Iceland, and some optimists hoped the Icelandic fish would be “just as good as the best from Norway.”
But the Norwegian church-people at Trinity Lutheran Church in Bismarck felt they had to have the real lutefisk from Norway for their fifth annual lutefisk supper, held in January of 1942. Fortunately, the astute congregational leaders had ordered 850 pounds of lutefisk from Norway from a Duluth supplier the previous summer, before the shortages began.
So there was lutefisk-joy that January as the “Bjornsons, Bjerkes, Bjellas, Bakkens and Bensons” gathered to feast on the “glorified cod” floating in rich, golden butter. They also gobbled down “3,200 pieces of lefse” and “1,600 fattigman” – the popular “poor man’s” cookies, washed down with plenty of strong coffee. The churchwomen also cooked 75 pounds of tasty Norwegian meatballs for those non-lutefisk-eating spoilsports who said: “hold your nose and pass the fish.”
Through the war years, the lutefisk supply was reduced and the Trinity Lutheran congregation had to make do with codfish from Iceland, Newfoundland or Alaska. Only when Norway was freed in 1945, did the real lutefisk return to the traditional church suppers.
Dakota Datebook written by Dr. Steve Hoffbeck
DAKOTA DATEBOOK: Champion Barrel Racer
October 17: North Dakota champion barrel racer Maude (Kirk) Gullickson was born on this date in 1911 in Washburn. Maude was the youngest daughter of Grant and Maude Kirk. She started riding horses as a toddler and rode nearly every day of her life until she was 73 years old. Maude trained and rode barrel-racing horses for most of her life, winning both the North Dakota State Cloverleaf title and the first North Dakota Rodeo Association State Champion Barrel Racer Title in 1955.
She married Orville Gullickson in 1935 in Sanger, and they had two sons. The couple farmed and ranched northeast Oliver County near Center for 40 years. Maude was an integral part of the operation, assisting with cattle drives and brandings, and she made sure her sons and grandchildren learned to ride.
Maude competed in dozens of rodeos throughout North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and into Canada every summer from the 1950s through the ‘70s. She was an honorary member of the North Dakota Rodeo, Roughrider and National Old Timers associations.
Maude continued to compete in Old Timers events until age 70 and was named “Old Timers Rodeo Queen” in 1982. A year later, she traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada, and Amarillo, Texas, to participate in the National Old Timers Finals.
Maude volunteered her time and expertise to 4-H clubs, assisting and teaching girls who entered horse shows and attended horse camps. Several of the horses she raised went on to win championships, including Dakota Red Sands, winner of the Pennsylvania Rodeo Association barrel-racing championship. She was inducted into the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame in June 2011.
She loved reminiscing about the early days of rodeo when the prizes were trophies, ribbons and belt buckles, not cash. She once said, “I’ve won enough buckles to make a whole belt.”
Maude died on September 13, 2005, in New Salem.
Dakota Datebook written by Cathy A. Langemo
DAKOTA DATEBOOK: Public Servant
October 27: On this date in 1925, Warren Christopher was born in Scranton, North Dakota. He attended the University of Southern California, where he graduated magna cum laude. During World War II he served in the Navy. After the war, he graduated from Stanford Law School, and went on to serve as law clerk to Justice William O. Douglas. He later practiced with a law firm in California, and in 1958 became special counsel to Governor Pat Brown. In 1977, he was sworn in as Deputy Secretary of State, a position he held until 1981.
He was instrumental in many delicate political negotiations including the Algiers Accords, relations with China, and ratification of the Panama Canal treaties. President Jimmy Carter awarded Christopher the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981. He also received the Senator John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected or Appointed Official.
From 1993 to 1997, Christopher was President Clinton’s Secretary of State. In 1993, he arranged a signing ceremony for the peace agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. In 1994, he committed what is seen as his greatest foreign policy mistake when the United States failed to act quickly and decisively to address the Rwandan Genocide. Also in 1994, Christopher worked with Senator John McCain to normalize relations with Vietnam. In 1995, he negotiated peace talks between Serbia and Croatia.
After his retirement, Christopher continued to serve his country. He supervised the contested Florida recount for Al Gore in the 2000 election. He was on the Advisory Board for the Partnership for a Secure America, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to fostering bipartisanship in Congress. With former Secretary of State James A. Baker, Christopher served as co-chair of the National War Powers Commission. He also taught a course on international affairs at UCLA.
Warren Christopher died at his home in Los Angeles on March 18, 2011. He was survived by his wife and four children. He was widely recognized for his long and valuable public service. Jimmy Carter called him “the finest public servant I ever knew.” President Obama said Christopher was a “resolute pursuer of peace.” Out of all his awards and honorary degrees, Christopher was especially proud of the Roughrider Award bestowed upon him by his native state.
Dakota Datebook written by Carole Butcher
DAKOTA DATEBOOK: Hans Aaker
October 28: At the turn of the 19th century, Hans Aaker was Moorhead’s leading prohibitionist, although he is best remembered for founding Aaker’s Business College in Fargo. A man of many endeavors, Aaker also served nearly a decade as Concordia College president before running for mayor of Moorhead, hoping to clean up “the Wickedest City in the World.”
Yesterday marked the 123rd anniversary of his founding of the Aaker’s Business College, which continues to operate in Fargo and Bismarck as a merged entity with Rasmussen College of St. Paul.
Aaker was born to a Norwegian farm family near Rideway, Iowa, in 1862. He initially studied ministry at Luther College, but eventually decided to pursue a degree in business. After graduating from Valparaiso University in 1883, he took charge of the commercial department of the Wilmar Seminary school in Wilmar, Minnesota.
In 1885, he began his first business venture by moving to Twin Valley, Minnesota, opening a general store with his older brother. Although successful, he left the store to his brother’s care and moved to Moorhead in 1892 to take charge of the commercial department at the newly-opened Concordia College. The following year, he became the school’s second president, taking over from Ingebrikt Grose. As in all matters of education, “…Aaker emphasized ‘practical’ courses, such as accounting and business.” In fact, he even went so far as to suggest that the college “…set aside the broad range of classical studies [that the school was centered on] in favor of a curriculum devoted solely…” to commercial courses. He was unsuccessful, however, as several of the school’s professors championed the school’s original vision of Christian and classical education. The disagreement created a lasting divide between President Aaker and his professors.
In 1900, he was elected Moorhead’s mayor on the prohibition ticket. Residents hoped Aaker would be able to clean up the city, but the influence of the town’s saloons was immense, and the new mayor narrowly escaped an assassination attempt shortly after his election. After being told that his mayoral aspirations were interfering with his presidential duties at the college, Aaker and his wife opened Aakers Business College in 1902. Within three months, the school had over a hundred students. In 2007, 105 years after its founding, the school merged with Rasmussen College.
Dakota Datebook written by Jayme L. Job
DAKOTA DATEBOOK: Statehood at Last
October 29: The road to statehood had been a long, difficult journey encompassing 32 years. Officially it began on March 2, 1861, when the Organic Act creating the Territory of Dakota was issued; however, attempts at statehood had an earlier beginning. In 1857, the Dakota Land Company promoted the states of Minnesota and Dakota. The company, composed mostly of Democrats, envisioned twin states sitting side by side, carved out of an area south of the 46th parallel, which is a bit north of the current border with South Dakota. The land north of that line would remain unorganized territory. Republicans in control of the United States Senate stymied this attempt.
The advent of the Civil War and the Minnesota Uprising of 1862 suspended settlement for almost a decade, but when the Northern Pacific Railroad crossed the Red River in 1872, westward expansion exploded onto the fertile plains of Dakota Territory.
A split of the territory was inevitable. As early as January of 1871, pro-statehood advocates from the southern half petitioned to create a State of South Dakota, but it died in Congress. They would make at least ten more attempts to be rid of their more primitive, northern neighbor. This was especially true after the Territorial Capitol was wrestled from Yankton and placed in Bismarck in 1883. It was not until the Jamestown Convention in 1888 that the northern Dakota Territory began an earnest effort to develop a constitution similar to the one completed in Huron for South Dakota in 1885.
Homesteaders and businessmen yearned to toss off the yoke of Territorial rule. A Democratic controlled Senate, aided by the owners of the huge bonanza farms and the railroad corporations, both seeking to avoid increased taxes, fought to retain territorial status. But by 1889, they were forced to capitulate. After three decades, the time had finally arrived.
It is fitting that President Benjamin Harrison signed the Proclamation of Admission since, as a senator from Indiana, he had personally submitted bills seeking statehood for Dakota in 1884 and 1886.
On Saturday, November 2, 1889, the two documents admitting the states of North and South Dakota were laid face-down on a sheet of paper on the President’s desk. They were shuffled, and turned face-up but the text was concealed by the paper on which they had been laid. The paper was slowly moved so that only the signature lines were exposed. At 3:40 PM Eastern Time the documents were signed.
Once the ink was dry, they were again placed face down and shuffled so that no one, not even President Harrison, knew which was signed first. At that moment, the Twin States of North Dakota and South Dakota were born.
Dakota Datebook written by Jim Davis
DAKOTA DATEBOOK: UND and NDSU’s “Nickel Trophy”
October 30: The rivalry between UND and NDSU for football preeminence in North Dakota began long ago, in 1894. At first, UND and NDSU merely contended for bragging rights, but a new element arose after 40 years of gridiron competition. It was on this date in 1937 that UND hosted NDSU in for homecoming, with the winner getting a brand-new prize – a shiny “Nickel Trophy” shaped like a gigantic Buffalo Nickel.
The Nickel Trophy idea came from UND student Robert Kunkel. Kunkel, editor of the
So, UND manufactured an outsized Buffalo Nickel, measuring 22 inches in diameter. This heavyweight trophy, made of “dull-cast aluminum alloy,” weighs 75 pounds, making it more than 34,000 times the weight of a 1937 buffalo nickel.
To defray manufacturing costs of the trophy, UND’s Blue Key service club raised money by selling clay-ceramic replicas of buffalo nickels, two-inches-in-diameter, for 25 cents each. UND’s Blue Key club members sold 1,590 of the medallions and had NDSU’s club sell 210 more.
In the inaugural 1937 Nickel-Trophy game, on October 30th, UND clobbered NDSU, 27-0. Predictably, there were shenanigans. Somebody stole the Nickel Trophy on Friday, before the game, taking it away by taxi after the trophy’s unveiling at the Alumni Homecoming Banquet. When Saturday’s football game began, officials did not know the whereabouts of the big nickel. The pranksters had stashed it on UND President John C. West’s front-porch, where West recovered it, just in the nick of time for presentation to the winning-team at UND’s homecoming dance.
For the next 60-some years, through 2003, UND and NDSU fought for the coveted trophy. Historically, the nickel games ended due to Division I upgrades and UND’s nickname change from “Sioux” to “Fighting Hawks.” UND prevailed over NDSU in the Nickel-Trophy Series by a final count of 35-30.
Dakota Datebook written by Dr. Steve Hoffbeck
DAKOTA DATEBOOK: A Cowboy Ghost Story in Bowman
October 31: It’s Halloween, a date to remember the eerie, spooky, or unexplainable. One such story was recalled by James M. Foley in 1915. Around 1889, just before North Dakota became a state, Foley was visiting one of A. C. Huidekoper’s horse ranches with its manager, George Woodman. This section of land was eight miles from the Little Missouri in Deep Creek, about 40 miles south of Medora.
During the visit, the men decided to go farther south, to the unsettled, unpopulated area that would become Bowman. The men camped on Turkey Creek, and while Foley went duck hunting, Woodman went looking for horses.
Despite the lack of a settlement, their camping location held two old buildings – a destroyed dwelling and a serviceable stable. Foley shared the history of the buildings, as told to him by Woodman:
“Woodman asked me if I was afraid of ghosts; that the barn was haunted. He then told me that the place we were at was … an old time camp of the Hash-Knife Cattle company [which originated in Texas]; that [just a few years earlier,] during the hard winter of 1886-1887, two men had been stationed to ride the line during the winter; that the snowfall was so great that no line riding could be done; that not only did all the cattle die, but the horses also, excepting the ones in the stable.”
The story continues with one of the two men becoming very ill. The other cowboy made an attempt to get help from the nearest ranch, which was 20 miles away, but he was unable to make it more than a few miles in those conditions. So, he stayed with the sick man until he died, then stored the body in the stable until spring had thawed the ground enough to bury him.
Afterward, there were reports that the dead man had been seen riding across the prairie on a white horse. Both horse and rider disappeared if anyone tried to overtake them.
Foley said, “This was fully believed by some of the old cowboys. It might have been true. We do not know, but we do not believe.”
Ranching was a big business, then, and it is not surprising that in the wild, wide open spaces of Dakota Territory, a story or two of a ghostly cowboy would ride across the prairie breeze.
Dakota Datebook by Sarah Walker
“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, subscribe to the “Dakota Datebook” podcast, or buy the Dakota Datebook book at shopprairiepublic.org.
