Dakota Datebook

It’s not every day that one can turn back time, but it happened on this date in 1931. Two years before, in 1929, Senator William E. Martin of Morton County introduced a bill that would put all of North Dakota in the central time zone.

North Dakota Native American Essential Understanding number seven is about native identity. It states, "Individual and communal identity is defined and supported by shared native languages, kinship systems, Tiospaye, clan structures, traditional teachings, values, sacred laws, and ceremonies. A continuum of tribal identity, unique to each individual, ranges from assimilated to traditional lifestyle. There is no generic American Indian."

On this date in 1983 a B-52 Stratofortress bomber exploded at the Grand Forks Air Force Base with the loss of 5 personnel. Fortunately, it did not have nuclear weapons on board. That was not the case less than 3 years earlier when on September 15th, 1980, a B-52 on alert status caught fire. Fanned by strong winds, the fire became a giant flamethrower. The crew jumped clear and ran.

According to North Dakota State University Extension and Ag Research News, rabbits are responsible for killing more trees in winter than cold temperatures. Rabbits eat the bark off young trees, especially fruit trees, to get to the sugar-rich tissue just below the bark. If a tree loses bark all the way around its circumference, it is likely going to die.

Mathias Hunt was born in Germany in 1848. He immigrated to America as a teenager, entered the Benedictine monastery in Indiana soon after, and became a priest by 1872. Best known as Father Jerome, he moved to Dakota Territory in 1877 and began working as a missionary at the Standing Rock Reservation. Eventually, in 1883, he traveled to the Mission of St. Michael’s on the Fort Totten Reservation.

On the west bank of the Missouri River, about halfway between Mandan and Cannon Ball, sits the tiny town of Huff. The area was first homesteaded in 1888 by John S. Huff. A Northern Pacific Railroad station was built in 1910, and a post office opened in 1911. Huff never had a population that exceeded 60 people, but at one point there was a school, grain elevator, dance hall, store, restaurant, and motel. Rail service ended in 1966, the school closed in 1976, and the post office closed in 1985.

In this episode of Dakota Datebook, we'll hear Lorraine Davis, educator, leader, and enrolled member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate share her insights into the importance of working together to help each other grow an understanding of our differing perspectives.

On this date in 1925, the Bismarck Tribune reported that a committee examining possible sites for hospitals in the tenth district, which included North Dakota, recommended building a 200-bed facility on Fargo’s north side. The site was intended to care for tuberculosis-infected veterans.

Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park was established in 1947. It’s home to a variety of remarkable critters, and officials have long sought to restore the area’s historic wildlife, including species present when future President Theodore Roosevelt ranched and hunted there in the 1880s.

Matt Crowley was born in Minnesota in 1875. In 1887 his family relocated to North Dakota to establish a ranch where they raised Hereford cattle. Crowley only had four years of formal education. After that, his father was his teacher as they worked the ranch together.