In the modern world anything less than high-definition
television is old school. It is the cutting edge of entertainment technology
and among the most popular of the Black Friday shopping targets.

But we are not that far removed from much more primitive
entertainment options.

In October of 1929 the State Theatre opened in Jamestown.
The new entertainment complex ran a full-page advertisement promoting some of
its unique features.

According to the ads the State Theatre was an “All Talky”
theatre. No more silent movies where you had to read the texts displayed on the
screen.

The first movie showed at the State Theatre was “Nothing
but the Truth.” It was a comedy where a crooked stockbroker is bet he can’t go
for 24 hours without telling a lie. He manages to win the bet even though he
has to explain a gold-digging sister act to his wife and try to raise $10,000
for charity in five days.

Like I said, it was a comedy and later remade in 1941,
starring Bob Hope.

The Opera House in Jamestown was also showing talking
movies although it seemed to run a silent feature from time to time. It showed
the movie “The Trespasser” at the same time the State Theatre was opening.

The Trespasser told the story about a kept woman who
lived high in Africa. It won an Academy Award nomination for Gloria Swanson.
Swanson was a veteran film actress, but this was the first movie where the
public could hear her voice.

This movie was remade in 1937 with Bette Davis and Henry
Fonda.

The advent of talking movies in Jamestown in October of
1929 had to be a welcome respite from the other news of the day.

Carl Ben Eielson’s plane had just been lost in the
Siberian Arctic. Eielson was a favorite son of North Dakota known for his
historic flights above the Arctic Circle. The disappearance of his flight and
the subsequent recovery of his body several weeks later made headlines across
North Dakota.

Then there was the collapse of the Stock Market. Not that
many in rural North Dakota noticed. The farm economy had been down for several
years. The local newspapers noted bank closings from time to time including the
State Bank of Merricourt in November of 1929.

But a person could escape all that bad news at a talking
movie. Cost for one of the new talkies was 50 cents a seat. Matinees went for a
bargain 15 cents.

I don’t know what a bag of popcorn went for back then but
I’m sure date night was a whole lot cheaper than now.

And you could save your money for the other form of
entertainment of that era. The furniture stores of Jamestown were advertising
the best in radios for your home listening pleasure.

You could get a Zenith radio for $175 in 1929. That’s
equivalent to about $2,200 now or about four times higher than that High
Definition television we watch today.

Nobody thought much of it when Urban Diteman landed his
open cockpit monoplane in Jamestown in the middle of October back in 1929.

Diteman was known as the Flying Cowboy and just seemed to
be roaming around from his home ranch near Billings, Mont.  A couple of
weeks later his name was in the headlines of papers around the world.

The Cowboy Pilot had bought a used airplane at St. Louis
the year before after he had shipped some cattle to market there. The record
seems a little vague about his amount of flying experience but some reports
said he had about 70 hours experience at the stick and was only licensed to fly
solo.

After he left Jamestown, he spent a day and night here
mostly hanging out with local pilots, he flew east to New York state and later
on to Harbor Grace in Newfoundland, Canada.

He told officials there he was researching maritime
records for information about a treasure left by Sir Francis Drake who he
claimed as an ancestor. Diteman was so enthralled with Drake he had named his
airplane the “Golden Hind” after Drake’s ship. He was actually waiting for good
weather.

On Oct. 22, 1929 Diteman took off from Harbor Grace. The
locals thought he was just going out for a sightseeing flight like he had done
several times before. It wasn’t until a local resident who had befriended
Diteman opened a sealed letter that they found out differently.

Diteman announced in that letter he was planning to fly
to London, England. The note also included instructions to hold his personal
effects, left in a hotel room, until he sent a cable from England. He must have
been a bit of a pessimist because the letter also said if no one heard from him
they should send the stuff back to Montana.

Diteman became the third man to attempt to fly across the
Atlantic Ocean solo. Charles Lindberg had been the only man to succeed. About
25 hours after Diteman departed, it became clear that Lindberg would continue
to hold that honor.

Diteman had rigged the Golden Hind with an additional
fuel tank that took up the entire second seat in the open cockpit monoplane.
His letter noted that he had enough fuel for 25 hours of flying which should
get him to London.

Everyone held out hope. The airfields around England even
left the lights on that night which was not a normal practice. Over the next
day most gave up hope.

The Golden Hind and Diteman were never heard from again.
A note in a bottle saying his plane was sinking in the middle of the ocean
washed up on the Irish coast but was never confirmed as authentic.

The Flying Cowboy made history, not necessarily in a good
way, and passed through Jamestown on his way.

Some places are named for people that never set foot
within the boundaries of the community that bears their name.

Enos Stutsman, for whom Stutsman County is named, was a
politician in Yankton and a border agent at Pembina during the early days of
the Dakota Territory. He was also the Register of Deeds for Pembina County back
when it was the only organized county in what is now North Dakota. The county
encompassed much of what is now eastern North Dakota and would have technically
included the Jamestown area.

Not that anyone from this area bothered to register any
deeds in the 1860s.

He got his county named after him in 1873.

Kidder County is also named for a territorial leader.

Jefferson Kidder was born and educated in Vermont. He
made a living as a lawyer and politician rising to the rank of Lt. Governor of
Vermont. In 1857 he moved to St. Paul and continued as a lawyer and was elected
to the Minnesota legislature.

But in 1865 President Abraham Lincoln nominated Kidder to
the Dakota Territory Supreme Court. For most of the next few years Kidder made
his home in Vermillion. Along with his service on the bench he was elected
twice, 1874 and 1876, as the territorial representative in the U.S. Congress.

The post was advisory without a vote in Washington but
was the highest elected office anyone from a territory could attain.

After his two terms in Congress he was returned to the
Dakota Territory Supreme Court.

A life as a politician and lawyer doesn’t sound like the
ideal frontiersmen. However, on at least one occasion Kidder traveled the
dangerous trails of wild lands.

The story starts when Lyman Kidder, son of Jefferson Kidder,
enlists in the U.S. Army. The young man is made a Lieutenant in the cavalry. In
1867 he is detailed to lead a detail of 10 troopers to carry a message to Gen.
George Armstrong Custer who is in the field against the Sioux and Cheyenne on
the plains of Kansas.

Lt. Kidder and his detail found the camp where Custer was
suppose to be waiting abandon. While attempting to locate and follow the trail
left by the 7th Cavalry the Kidder group finds itself in the midst of way too
many Indians. In a running battle that covers an estimated 4 miles all 11 men
are killed and their body’s mutilated.

That might be the end of the story if it weren’t for the
action of Supreme Court Justice Jefferson Kidder. He hired guides and wagons
and traveled from Vermillion to Kansas to exhume the body. Most of the trip was
through what would be considered hostile territory. While in Kansas he gathered
as much information on the death of his son as possible including interviewing
Custer.

Jefferson Kidder died in 1883. I don’t know if he ever
visited the county named in his honor. But he seems a pretty capable man in the
courtroom or the prairie.