Residents of Jamestown were going to be using imported ice in 1933.

Imported all the way from Spiritwood Lake that is.

Ice had been harvested from the James River right in Jamestown for years. However, low water on the river was causing the ice to contain mud and algae. While the principle use of the ice was cooling the residential ice box back in the days before refrigerators the homeowner would occasionally chip off a piece for drinks.

This was just after prohibition ended so I’m sure some ice was finding its way into cocktails.

Refrigerators didn’t become common until after World War II. There were models available as early as the 1920s but they had some disadvantages. The chemicals used as coolant could cause blindness or even burst into flames if they leaked from the fridge.

And electrical service wasn’t as stable as it is now so your fridge probably would only work part of the time under the best of circumstances.

So in the 1930s most people in Jamestown still relied on an ice box to keep their food and drinks cool. And they relied on the Jamestown Ice Company for the ice to keep the ice box cool.

The company harvested 8 million pounds of ice from Spiritwood Lake during the winter of 1932 to 1933. The ice on the lake was said to be about 17 inches thick and a crew of eight men employed by the ice company cut the ice into blocks. Farmers with teams of horses were hired to pull the blocks out of the lake and to the shore.

The Jamestown Ice Company also hired about 50 other farmers with about 30 trucks to haul the ice from Spiritwood Lake to Jamestown. Those drivers had to be busy. If the trucks of the 1930s could haul 1,000 lbs. per trip they had to make 8,000 trips from Spiritwood to Jamestown.

Even if the trucks could haul a ton it would still take 4,000 trips to haul the ice to town.

But what I found interesting about this incident is the reason the ice company gave for using Spiritwood Lake ice rather than James River.

“It will cost several thousand more,” said E.S. Cronin, manager of Jamestown Ice. “But it will give Jamestown an unexcelled supply of ice and it will provide work for additional men.”

The depressed economy of the 1930s is legendary. I’m sure it was tempting for the Jamestown Ice Company to sacrifice quality and save costs. Instead they took pride in their product and in the fact they provided work for dozens of men in the area.

It is too bad modern refrigerators took over the food cooling industry in the decades that followed. We could use more companies like Jamestown Ice Company.

I have a snow shovel sitting on my deck. So far this
winter the only movement it has seen is when the dog knocks it over.

That is a good thing.

We’ve had a few winters recently with a lot of snow.
We’ve had to deal with deep drifts and the inconveniences they bring. But we
have modern equipment for moving snow.

In 1907 there was a lot of snow as well. Probably similar
to the last few years.

And they didn’t have the modern equipment we take for
granted today.

According to a January edition of the Jamestown Alert
there were 1,200 men hired by the railroad to shovel off the tracks between
Larimoure and Minot.

The railroad sent out special trains, including bunk and
cook cars, for the crews that would be shoveling the tracks clear. The trouble
was the wind was blowing in the snow as quickly as the track was shoveled. In
fact, visibility was so bad that a following freight train ran into a shoveling
crew killing two and injuring 7.

The Great Northern Railroad tried using a rotary plow on
another section of track in northern North Dakota. This was the equivalent of a
big snowblower mounted on a steam engine.

The rotary plow ran out of coal before it reached Minot.
Unfortunately, the tracks had blown in behind the train effectively leaving it
stranded in the middle of nowhere.

In a move that had to be embarrassing to the railroad
they had to contract with local farmers to use horse drawn sleds to haul coal
to the train.

In Jamestown things were getting desperate due to a lack
of coal. The railroad loaned the city power plant 10 tons to keep the power on
in Jamestown. The state hospital heating plant was also noted as running short
on coal because the trains weren’t getting through even on the mainline of the
Northern Pacific.

It would seem that watching for the railroad snow plows
and trains was a common pass time in any of the towns along the tracks,
including Jamestown.

Dr. J.J. Davy, a local physician in Jamestown, even
diagnosed a new ailment associated with the problem.

Davy said he had diagnosed many cases of
“rubberneckitis” in people who stood on the depot platform looking
down the track to see if the snow plow was coming.

Which is why the lack of snow is good for everyone’s
health this winter.

Gaining the right to vote for women was a long and slow
process. The earliest discussions started in colonial days when Abigail Adams
wrote her husband a letter reminding him to “Remember the ladies.”
Instead we end up with a Declaration of Independence that said “All men
are created equal.”

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton rallied for the
vote with the American Equal Rights Association. The group worked for the vote
for black men and women of all races. They only partially succeeded with the
vote for men of any race guaranteed by the 15th Amendment in 1870.

Also in the 1870s the women’s suffrage movement gained an
ally. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union
added its quest for national prohibition with the right to vote for the
ladies. I’m sure this group made a lot of friends among the male political
factions on both those topics.

Women won the right to vote in 1920. Since then they have
been as responsible as the male population for our political messes.

But it took years for the energy to build within the
movement. By 1915 the topic was hitting the front burner and was making news
even on the local level. The Jamestown Alert ran a number of brief articles
during January of that year.

First, they listed the minimum wage for women. These laws
varied from state to state but at least some listed the basic wage for women at
$8.35 per week.

Most people make at least that wage in an hour, not a
week, of labor. Even adjusted for inflation that is about $178 per week.

And the paper included some comments from the local
residents about the prospect of allowing women access to the ballot box.

The Wednesday Night Club, a gathering of local leaders
and business men, suggested that women be given what they want.

“If they want to bring in the wood and bring in the water,”
the article continued.

It would seem that women not only have won the right to
vote and better wages. They have also won the right to indoor plumbing and
central heat.

I guess that has to be called progress.

Christmas is a time of peace on earth and good will
towards men.

But most years the events of the world color those good
wishes and create a different holiday season message.

Some events are outside the control of man. Things like
storms and earthquakes can hamper the holiday spirit and change the holiday
from one of visiting relatives to just struggling to survive. That will happen
in the northern hemisphere when you hold a holiday during the winter season.

Other events a world away can change the spirit of the
season. Wars and strife on other continents can influence the holiday at home
in some cases.

All of those things ganged up on the people of Stutsman
County at Christmas of 1935.

Events or the world were on a slow simmer towards World
War II that winter.

Italy was already fighting a war in Ethiopia. Germany had
invaded Poland starting to set the stage for the European theater of that war.
Japan was fighting the Chinese in Manchuria setting the stage for the Pacific
theater of World War II. Events of all of these conflicts were on the front
page of the Jamestown Sun in the days around Christmas, 1936.

Then there was the blizzard. The storm of 1936 caught
most by surprise and seemed to strike on the afternoon of Christmas eve.

The ferocity of the storm stranded travelers in the open
country. While some people traveled by cars and trucks others still used
horse-powered transportation. The greatest tragedy came to a couple trying to
get their farm from Fried by a horse-drawn wagon.

Paul Antonowitz and his wife visited the stores in Fried
that afternoon for groceries. The towns people suggested they stay over and
wait out the storm. They chose instead to try to get home to their three
children who had stayed on the farm 2 and a half miles north of Fried.

The storm was severe enough to disorient the horses and
soon had them traveling in circles. The cold and exertion of walking through
the snow exhausted the team of horses which died in their harnesses.

Paul Antonowitz went out walking around the wagon hoping
to find a house. The exertion took a toll on him as well. Sometime in the night
he died of exposure even though he had managed to get back to the wagon and his
wife.

His wife survived the night in the box of the wagon and
spotted a farm home at sunrise. She walked to the home where neighbors spent
the Christmas holiday taking her to the Jamestown Hospital and collecting the
children.

In the 75 years since the world has not become a more
peaceful place and the threat of wars still continues. But let us hope for good
weather and safe travel and a Christmas of family and joy.

May you have a safe and happy holiday season from Keith
and Jane Norman.

Sports have always been a big part of our communities. Many people are fans and watch their favorite team on the high-definition widescreen every weekend.

But nearly a century ago being a sports fan probably meant participating in a local amateur squad or competing in individual competitions.

That is not to say that the big leagues didn’t have its followers in Jamestown. An early January 1930 edition of the Jamestown Sun had a photo of Babe Ruth as part of a salute to the national sports figures of the previous year.

The display included the top golfers, football stars, boxers and tennis players of 1929. It even included a photo of Blue Larkspur the top race horse of the year. The horse won an amazing $250,000 in three years of racing and is still listed in the top 100 of American Thoroughbreds of all time.

But for the local sports enthusiast the thrill of the big league games was distant. They only way they could follow any of the national sports was through the newspaper’s recount of the game or event after the event.

If you wanted to actually see a game you probably watched a local team compete. This could be a high school or college team or one of the many amateur squads that sprang up. And if you wanted to compete you had a wide variety of sports to choose from.

Some of the events are still held. In 1935 Billy Sundahl of Jamestown won the North Dakota amateur golf title.

Bowling was probably bigger back in the early days of the 20th century. The Jamestown Bowling organization hosted teams from a multi-state area every winter. This back in the days when youngsters could earn a little pocket money by setting pins down at the end of the lanes.

But amateur competitions in other sports that were popular in the 1920s and 1930s are no longer held. Many communities in North Dakota, including Jamestown, had ski jumps during that era. Those competitions aren’t held any longer.

Amateur boxing was gaining popularity in the depression era. The North Dakota Athletic Commission was formed in 1935 and could sanction both amateur and professional events. The paper commonly carried results of boing cards from around the state.

And for the hearty souls, Jamestown had an amateur hockey team back in 1935. The Jamestown Elks hockey team played in the north division of the Pioneer American Independent Hockey League of North Dakota.

That is the PAIHLND for those that think of sports leagues by its acronym. The north division had teams in Jamestown, New Rockford and Cooperstown while the south fielded squads from Valley City, Lisbon and Wahpeton.

But that didn’t stop the teams from playing other teams from around the area. On New Years Day, 1936, the Jamestown Elks hockey team played the Bismarck Philips 66 team at the rink in the park. The game was played at 2:30 in the afternoon. This allowed the spectators and players to benefit from the afternoon sunlight and any afternoon warmth.

Which has to take a little more dedication than watching a game on an HD TV.

Jet aircraft service returned to Jamestown this past
week. This is just a temporary situation until a new airline takes over the
service.

Jamestown has a long history with aircraft. In fact, the
town was kind of the headquarters for a barnstorming show back in the very
early days of aviation.

James Bowen owned one of the first cab companies in
Jamestown as well as the first aircraft in the community. He operated out of an
airstrip just to the north of the current entrance to Jamestown College.

Some of his cab drivers were also his pilots who put on
barnstorming air shows at fairs and other events around the region. The show
even included a parachute act. Fred Kennison, brother-in-law of Bowen, would
jump out of a perfectly good airplane and drift to the ground. For his
death-defying act he got whatever they collected when the hat was passed.
Sometimes Kennison got as much as $5 for risking putting a big dent in the
ground.

Bowen had bigger plans for his air operations. In 1927 he
recruited subscribers to help pay for an attempt to fly non-stop across the
Atlantic Ocean in order to try to win the Orteig Prize.

Raymond Orteig was a New York City hotel owner who
offered $25,000 to the first Allied pilot or pilots to fly across the Atlantic
Ocean. He first offered the award in 1919. For the first five years no one even
attempted the feat. Orteig renewed the prize in 1924. Advancements in aircraft were
tempting pilots to try for the prize.

Bowen got the bug in 1927. The reports don’t say how much
money he raised or when he planned on making his tran-Atlantic flight. We do
know that on May 20, 1927 Charles Lindberg beat him to the punch and won the Orteig
Prize. Bowen returned the money to the subscribers and evidently kept on flying
barnstorming shows.

Was a Jamestown man poised to win the greatest honor in
aviation history only to be aced out by Lucky Lindy? We’ll never know. It is
also equally possible that if the Jamestown crew had tried the flight they
would have become just another footnote as someone who made it only part way
across the Atlantic.

And all that parachute experience wouldn’t help you that
much if your plane conked out over the middle of the ocean.

We celebrated Thanksgiving this past week. The annual
celebration of too much food and football that has given way to the equally
American pass times of shopping and bargain hunting.

Thanksgiving has been, for the most part, on the fourth
Thursday of November since 1863. The holiday was uniformly set on this date by
act of Pres. Abraham Lincoln. Prior to that states that observed the holiday,
mostly in the north and New England regions, each proclaimed their own
thanksgiving holiday sometime in the fall.

Many of the southern states didn’t have such a holiday
but I don’t think this is why they fought the American Civil War.

For one year, during the Great Depression, they moved the
holiday forward one week.

Even by the depression era Thanksgiving marked the start
of the Christmas shopping season. In 1939 business interests lobbied to move
Thanksgiving forward to extend the shopping season. Franklin Roosevelt approved
the move with hopes it would help restore the American economy.

Instead he just angered the people. In fact, Roosevelt
must have assumed the date change wouldn’t be popular. He didn’t announce the
change until October, just weeks before the new holiday.

The early holiday was known as “Franksgiving”
rather than Thanksgiving. Many Americans celebrated at the regular date and the
holiday shopping didn’t pick up until after the fourth Thursday of November.

Even if the public was against the holiday move it might
have been made permanent, if it had worked.

The amount of money spent on holiday gifts in 1939 was
about the same as anticipated. The shoppers didn’t spend more just because the
holiday shopping season was longer.

Which brings me to my question about our modern Black
Friday hysteria. Does anyone spend more just because the stores open earlier
and run bizarre advertisements? The wise consumer budgets what they can spend
on holiday gifts and spends accordingly. The longer hours and sales shouldn’t
increase sales but may move the spending to earlier in the season.

But it seems the Black Friday hysteria has become as much
a part of the Thanksgiving tradition as holding the event on the fourth
Thursday of Thanksgiving. I wouldn’t anticipate any more efforts to move the
holiday or curtail retail promotions.

We Americans take our holidays and shopping too seriously
for that type of government interference.

Jamestown is seldom on the cutting edge of technology
even in the field of transportation.

The first traffic light in the world was installed
outside Parliament in Jolly Old England in 1868. The illumination for this traffic
light was a gas flame. A year later, the thing exploded and at least injured
the Bobby that was patrolling the area.

The first traffic light on this side of the pond was
installed in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1912. This one was lit with electric
lights so at least it didn’t explode. These early designs had only the red and
green colors. Evidently, yellow hadn’t been invented yet.

The first three-colored traffic lights hit the streets of
the United States in 1922. However, I don’t think it was one of this advanced
design that Jamestown installed in the fall of 1926.

Evidently, this new device was causing some confusion
among the early motorists in the area. The Jamestown police chief asked the
Jamestown Alert to run an article about the rules associated with a traffic
light.

“Motorists must stop whenever the signal facing them says
‘Stop,’” the article said. “They can move forward when it says ‘Go.’”

Gosh, you would have thought people could have figured
that out on their own.

The advent of cars and trucks as the principle means of
transportation had to be a learning curve for everyone involved. Most of the
old traffic rules, such as don’t ride through the streets faster than a trot,
had to be thrown out and new rules for the motorized world had to be installed.
Traffic rules meant to limit incidents that would spook horses now had to
include car horns and the roar of an engine.

The same article that described the rules of the road
concerning traffic lights reminded drivers that the city ordinances required
they “sound their horn and look back when exiting a parking spot.”

Being an early motorist in Jamestown had to be a
challenge. Pavement was virtually unheard of and even the gravel roads were
limited. The technology of the cars of the 1920s required the driver to be as
much mechanic as wheel man. I’m sure that more than one early car owner
wondered whether the new fangled contraption was really a step up from the
horse and buggy.

Especially when they had to deal with the new invention,
at least as far as Jamestown was concerned, of the traffic light. And then
there were those difficult instructions like “Stop” and “Go.”

Royalty doesn’t come to Jamestown, North Dakota, often.

Back in July of 1926, we got a visit from the Crown
Prince and Princess of Sweden. At least for a few minutes.

Prince Gustaus Adolphus and his wife Princess Louise made
a stop at the Jamestown Depot on the evening of July 1, 1926. And Jamestown was
ready for them.

The train rolled into the depot in the evening. The royal
couple was greeted by a group of singers, identified in the paper only as a
Jamestown male quartet, singing the Swedish National Anthem. This was followed
by Mayor C.B. Buckley, making what was termed a humorous speech asking the
royal couple to spend a few days in town enjoying the sites.

It was considered humorous because it was just a whistle
stop while the train was replenished with water and coal before continuing west
towards Yellowstone National Park.

The Prince addressed the crowd here in Jamestown in
Swedish. There at least a few from the old country who probably enjoyed the
words of encouragement from the old country royal family.

Evidently the newspaper reporter didn’t speak Swedish,
whatever the comments by Gustaus they didn’t make it into the newspaper.

Prince Gustaus was what is referred to as a Crown Prince.
This means he is the direct heir to the thrown in his country. Other royal
descendants can be called a prince or princess but only the Crown Prince is
just waiting around for the old man to die so they can become king.

Gustaus had a long wait. He was already 42-years-old when
he visited Jamestown. It wasn’t until 1950, when he was 67, that the position
of King finally opened up.

In the meantime Gustaus had married twice. After his
first wife, Princess Margaret, died he married Lady Louise. Both were
descendants of the British Royal Family.
In fact the children of his first wife and Lady Louise were all
considered great grandchildren of the English Queen Victoria.

Which had to make for a complicated family gathering at
Thanksgiving.

The histories say that King Gustaus, he reigned from 1950
until his death in 1973, was a popular king. In fact, his popularity is
probably responsible for the new Swedish Constitution retaining a monarchy.

And he was popular in Jamestown. An estimated 3,000
people gathered at the depot on that July evening. A lot were probably of
Swedish descent but many had to just be gathered to see some royalty.

After all, it wasn’t often that Crown Prince and Princess
paid a visit to Jamestown. Even if it was just for water and coal.

The residents of Jamestown have always had a soft spot in
their hearts for dogs.

One of the most notable early canines was Ponto, a
bulldog that made his home with the railroad crews at the depot in the early
days of Jamestown.

Ponto was known to growl and snarl at any dog that passed
by the railroad offices. This made him a little less than popular with the
local populace. According to the Jamestown Alert, on at least three separate
occasions, Ponto was the subject of poisoning efforts.

He must have had a pretty tough system. Strychnine was
readily available back then.

His disposition must have been legendary in Jamestown.
The paper even mentioned when a farm dog, in town with his owner, took a bone
from Ponto “without getting chewed into sausage meat.”

He must have caught the bulldog on a good day.

Ponto even made his mark in theatre.

According to one story, he accompanied some of the
railroad men to a dog menagerie at one of the local theatres. As the trained
dogs came on stage Ponto left his seat in the audience, paid for by his
railroad crew friends, and jumped on stage and disrupted the entire show.

This got Ponto, and his friends, kicked out of the
theatre.

Not wanting to miss the show. The railroad gang paid
another admission for themselves and Ponto, and got in again. This time they
had balcony seats away from the stage.

As soon as the show started, Ponto slipped away from the
group, ran down the balcony stairs and was back creating havoc on stage in a
matter of moments.

Ponto had a legendary life of a railroad dog in
Jamestown. He even accompanied crews when they went out to repair tracks. Ponto
died at about six-years-of-age when his back was broken when he was struck by a
caboose on one of those repair trips.

I thought of these stories because I’ve been thinking
about dogs a lot lately.

It came about when I was writing about some of the
hardest working dogs in this region. The dogs trained by Service Dogs for
America at Jud. I recently wrote a book about the dogs and the people they
help.

It was one of the most rewarding creative efforts I have
ever undertaken.

This Saturday, Nov. 5, I’ll be signing copies of that
book at Babb’s Coffee House in downtown Jamestown from 1 to 3 p.m. All proceeds
from the sale of the book go to further the efforts of Service Dogs for
America.

They will even have a dog along to show the skills of a trained
service dog. In fact, the dog will be signing copies as well.

Although I don’t think he will be disrupting live theatre
while he’s in Jamestown.