Working on a story involving road taxes and digging holes in roads back before 1909.

It would seem neither were working back then.

Catch in the Prairie Post on Tuesday and in this space on Wednesday.

Viewing a photograph is suppose to make a person think.

A snapshot may bring back fond memories of family, friends and good times.

A news photo should reenforce and expand the story. A visual interpretation of the events described in words.

When I look at this photo I think about the two powerhouses of the North Dakota economy, agriculture and energy.

The farmers out there just see all those damn utility poles they have to farm around.

For those looking for a little history and entertainment this weekend there is an event at Whitestone Hill Historic Site.

Starting at about 2 p.m., Sunday Aug. 30 there will be a reenactment of the dedication of the monument at the site.

The orriginal dedication occured in 1909.

After that music from a Johnny Cash tribute band. Looking forward to a Boy Named Sue and Ring of Fire myself.

I’ll be the MC of the whole event.

Whitestone Hill is located south of Kulm or west of Monango or Merricourt. About 50 miles southwest of Jamestown.

The historic site marks the last major battle between the U.S. Army and Native American forces fought east of the Missouri River. The battle occured on Sept. 3 and 5 or 1863, the site is considered a Civil War Battlefield.

This column ran in the Aug. 24 edition of the Prairie Post.

I suppose everyone has felt the urge to race a train to the crossing. To save a little time and make sure we get to the other side of the tracks before the train blocks our way and forces us to sit and watch the graffiti adorned railroad cars pass in front of us.
Today we’re going to look at a couple of instances from a century ago that just didn’t turn out well.
Dr. Helena Wink was well known for racing the train to see who could reach the intersection of track and road first. About 4 p.m. on a summer afternoon in 1909 the good doctor was traveling across Jamestown when the guard arms came down on the street near the depot she was traveling on.
Wink whipped up her team and raced around the depot to find the arms still up on the street there. Well they were for a little while at least.
As Wink drove her team across the track the gate came down striking her and startling the team. She ends up, unconscious, on the side of the tracks while her spirited team of horses headed down the street.
The accident was witnessed by Mayor Pierce Blewett who, with the help of others managed to get the unconscious doctor a little further off the track and care for her until she regained consciousness.
The tally for the accident included some bruises and a broken collarbone for Dr. Wink and a torn buggy top. Blewett and the other residents caught the horses, tossed the broken railroad guard arm out of the buggy, and loaded Wink up to take her home where she recovered under her own treatment.
Our other train accident from 1909 doesn’t involve wagons, buggies or even pedestrians.
The main line of the Northern Pacific was crossed by the James Valley branch line in Jamestown.
The engineer of a train on the branch line said, in the Jamestown Alert, because he had a lighter train he felt he could get across the mainline and into the switch yard before the slower heavier west bound NPRR train.
It soon became obvious he was wrong.
“The heavy engine of the west bound freight struck the Valley line engine on the right side,” the Alert reported. “Both engines leaving the tracks and tearing up the bed for several rods.”
According to the reports no one was injured in the accident. The crews of both trains, the engineer and the fireman, jumped before impact.
Evidently railroad engineers don’t have to follow the tradition of sea captains and go down with the ship.
The crash reportedly broke windows a full block away from the site of the impact and drew quite a crowd but at least it didn’t injure one of the town’s doctors.
 

Every one has had the urge to race the train to the crossing.

I’ve found a couple of incidents from 1909 where it just didn’t work out well.

Read about it in the Prairie Post on Tuesday and here on this blog on Wednesday.

A reader brought me a picture of Edmunds from 1903.

The photo is shot from some high vantage point possibly a grain elevator or maybe the railroad water tower.

I believe the item in the lower right hand corner is the corrals and ramp for loading livestock on to rail cars. You also see a number of homes and barns in town.

It must have been tough to be a dog in Edmunds in 1903. I don’t see a tree anywhere in town.

Sometimes you don’t have to travel to a wildlife sanctuary to view a little nature. I photographed these Ox Eye Daisies growing in my lawn.

Maybe my wife is right, maybe it is time to mow the lawn.

This column ran in the Aug. 18, 2009 column in the Prairie Post

The wreck occurred late in the evening. About 9 p.m. on a Tuesday in July 1909 Floyd Nowlin was driving the steam engine owned by William K. O’Neill through Jamestown. He may have been headed for a new field to harvest as steam engines were the power source for threshing machines of the era.
But the trip across Jamestown was about to hit a snag. When the 30,000 pound steam engine tried to cross the Main Street bridge over the James River the bridge wasn’t up to the task. The structure collapsed with the rear wheels of the steam engine ending up in the mud of the river bank below while the front wheels stuck up in the air “entirely free,” reported the Jamestown Alert. Nowlin was thrown clear of the wreck and suffered only bruises from bridge planks falling on him.
As you would expect, this caused quite a commotion in Jamestown one hundred years ago. The Alert reports that a large crowd gathered the day after the wreck to watch efforts to retrieve the engine. Temporary railroad tracks were constructed to the bridge so the Northern Pacific wrecking car could lift the engine off the river bank and to the street.
But that is not where this story ends. You see Jamestown had a law against driving a steam engine across a bridge unless “the bridge be covered with planks or boards sufficient to prevent the wheels touching the bridge or in any manner breaking the same.”
O’Neill hadn’t but down planks and stood accused of breaking the city’s bridge.
The day after the accident, possibly even while the Northern Pacific wrecker car lifted the steam engine out of the river bed, the case went to trial in Municipal Court.
Mayor Pierce Blewett brought the charges for the city in an effort to recover the $700 to $800 it would cost to repair the bridge. O’Neill didn’t take the charges quietly. He announced in court he intended to sue the city for the $500 to $600 in damages to his steam engine caused by the cities “rotten and not safe” bridge.
With both parties planning to sue the other Justice Carr adjourned the case until Aug. 10 when the city attorney would be back in town.
The additional couple of weeks evidently gave both parties time to cool down. Only the misdemeanor city charge of “driving a traction engine over a bridge without planking it” was tried. Blewett, Nowling and B. F. Pontius, a witness to the accident, testified for the prosecution.
O’Neill offered no witnesses in defense and was found guilty and fined $25 and court costs. This left the costs of the bridge repairs to the city and the steam engine to O’Neill.
The same edition of the Jamestown Alert reported the city was rebuilding the Main Street bridge with 4 by 12 beams rather than the previous 3 by 12. It also became the first bridge in Jamestown with a sidewalk along the road making it more convenient for pedestrians.
The paper doesn’t report on how O’Neill got his steam engine to the other side of the river.
 

Birds were conspicuous by their absence when I spent a couple of hours at the Edward M. Brigham III Alkali Lake Sanctuary, located just northeast of Jamestown, this weekend. There were some exceptions, a few sparrows, a couple of diving ducks and a falcon who circled overhead, keening a lonesome cry, the entire time I walked through the refuge.

But there were still things to see.
Deer scampered away long before I got a chance for a good photograph.

Wildflowers added specks of yellow and purple to the carpet of the tall grass prairie, drawing my attention, as well as the attention of bees both wild and domestic.

And dragonflies flitted around, largely ignoring my muttered curse-ladden request to sit still long enough for the process of photography.
 

But mostly I will remember the time I spent in the gullies between hills. Small places where you could not see the effects of the hand of man on the land and where the only sound, other than the persistent wind, was the lonesome cry of that falcon overhead.

I believe this portion of the refuge, along the shore of Alkali Lake, is not part of the state’s lawsuit against the Audubon Society. See earlier entries for more information about the case.

A little glimpse of what I’m working on for the Prairie Post column for this week.

It is a story from a century ago that involves weak bridges, heavy objects and court proceedings.

I can’t say anything more, especially until I get around to writing it.