Dakota Datebook

Fires were a menace to frontier towns, with many towns burning to the ground, often more than once. Buildings were heated with fireplaces and coal stoves and lit by candles and oil lamps. With wooden structures standing close together, disaster was always just around the corner, and all it took was one careless mistake.

In this episode of Dakota Datebook, we'll hear from Sidney Bird, enrolled member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, telling his birth story.

Skuli Skulason was born on the northwest shore of Lake Winnipeg in 1877, the first member of his Icelandic family born in North America. In spring 1880, two-year-old Skuli rode the family’s only cow while the rest of the family hiked from Lake Winnipeg to Mountain, North Dakota. Fifteen years later, he sold a cow he had raised from a calf to finance his education at the University of North Dakota (UND).

As the Eighteenth Century faded into the rearview mirror, things were changing at a mind-boggling pace. Americans began to take to the roads in automobiles. Horse-drawn streetcars were giving way to electric vehicles. Visitors to the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis marveled at flying machines and electric coffee makers and dishwashers. The world was on the verge of a new age.

The first official offices of the State Historical Society were located in the basement of the original Capitol building. The rooms were described as “small” and filled with various “mementoes and records of early days, souvenirs of the pioneer and other curios,” all “compressed” into limited space. These items were referred to as “records of inestimable value…stacked in heaps in places around the state house, where they were constantly exposed to the danger of destruction by fire.” This was especially concerning since many people smoked freely in the capitol building at that time.

Valley City, established in 1874, was originally known as Worthington, named for George Worthington, a strong promoter of the settlement. The name was changed to Valley City in 1878. The city is known as the "City of Bridges" due to the many bridges across the Sheyenne River, including the Hi-Line Railroad Bridge. The first census in Valley City in 1880 recorded three hundred twenty residents. By 1890, the population had grown to over a thousand, and Valley City continued to expand from there.

As World War I raged, urgent pleas for help came from Jews in Eastern Europe. They were suffering not only from food shortages but also from discrimination and oppression. An estimated two million Jews were entirely dependent on charity. In response, the Orthodox Union in the United States established a relief committee in 1914. When fundraising efforts fell short, they asked President Wilson to designate Jewish War Relief Day. Wilson approved the measure in 1916, noting in his proclamation that Americans “have learned with sorrow of this terrible plight of millions of human beings and have most generously responded to the cry for help whenever such an appeal has reached them.”

Bud Grant, the legendary coach of the Minnesota Vikings, was always an avid outdoorsman who loved hunting and fishing. One of the places where he hunted waterfowl was Kenmare, in Ward County.

Black patriots played an important role in the American Revolution, with about five thousand African Americans serving the cause of independence. From the first shot at Lexington and Concord to the final shot at Yorktown, Black recruits fought side by side with their white comrades. By the time of the Civil War, the American military was segregated, with nearly 200,000 African Americans serving in the Union Army and Navy.

When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, suspicion fell on German Americans. Anti-German sentiment led to the prohibition of teaching German in schools, the closure of many German-language newspapers, and persecution for speaking German in public or on the phone.