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Back Then with Tracy Briggs
Back Then with Tracy Briggs episodes
- The day Fargo's grandest hotel became a deadly ice palace
Fire tore through the Earle Hotel on Dec. 13, 1951, killing three, making news around the world, and turning a one-armed man into a hero.
11 min - One of America's most popular cakes was made possible by a Minnesota man and a Jewish women's club
The partnership was formed nearly 75 years ago so the women could recreate a taste of the old country. What they did changed baking forever.
10 min - These twins helped make history in Valley City then went on to lead parallel yet unique lives
We asked your help in finding some of the "Famous Valley City Twins of 1935" and you delivered.
9 min - 'Leave it to Beaver' star Hugh Beaumont once owned a Christmas tree farm in Minnesota
As many of you head to the Christmas tree lot to pick out that perfect pine, what would you think if one of America's favorite TV dads, Ward Cleaver, sold it to you?
Yes. That Ward Cleaver, as in June's husband and Wally and Beaver's dad.
Sounds likes a fever dream (like Greg Brady taking your order at Starbucks or Gidget soaping up your tires at the car wash). But Ward Cleaver helping you with your Christmas tree actually could have happened.
Hugh Beaumont, who starred as Ward Cleaver in the popular family sitcom "Leave It to Beaver" from 1957 to 1963, was once the proud owner of a Christmas tree farm in Grand Rapids.
Read the rest, along with all of Tracy's Back Then stories, at http://www.inforum.com/tracy-briggs
8 min - What covering Kennedy's assassination was like for Forum journalists in 1963
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy was a cataclysmic moment for American journalists, and the reporters and editors of the Fargo Forum, as it was known in 1963, were no different. In a special episode of Back Then, Tracy Briggs reads an account of the moment the assassination made its way into the pages of the Forum, along with the chaotic hours and days that followed with the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald and his subsequent murder by Jack Ruby.
15 min - Sure, bison roamed the plains here, but what about the school bus-sized sea lizards with angry eyebrows?
North Dakota high schools looking to replace outdated school nicknames are in luck. Thanks to science, the following mascots are now as representative of our state as bison, buffaloes, roughriders or vikings.
How do these sound to you?
The Fighting Jǫrmungandrs?
The Walhallaensis Warriors?
The Mighty Mosasaurs?
Okay, maybe they need a little work.
But the fact is any of those names would work after the American Natural History Museum recently released the name of a giant sea lizard "with angry eyebrows" who once swam here.
6 min - His parents mailed him to Valley City, then he met the Pope
Readers solve the mystery identity of the Fargo toddler who traveled via U.S. Mail. It turns out that might have been one of the least interesting things about him.
10 min - Do you know these people at a 1957 party on the prairie?
This photo was found tucked in a book at the Fargo Public Library. But who are these people?
5 min - Fifty years before a UFO flew over a Bison football game, Barnesville had its own run-in. Or did they?
Some witnesses claimed they saw politicians looking down from a 'mystery airship' while others said they were Martians coming to buy ladies' clothes. What exactly was going on in Barnesville?
8 min - People used to send their kids through the mail. No, really.
In 1913, when the U.S. Postal Service introduced parcel post service, customers took advantage by shipping their children.
10 min
About Back Then with Tracy Briggs
From the publisher's feed
Midwest memories of the good old days and a few cool people we've met along the way.
Find more stories by Tracy Briggs here: https://www.inforum.com/tracy-briggs