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.

We hear about labor unions from time to time. The groups generally don’t make the news until there is some sort of strike or lockout.

Back in the early years of the 1900s the International Workers of the World were one of the common labor unions of the transient workers. Members commonly included farm workers that traveled the country following the harvests..

The IWW was less charitably known as the “wobblies” and by the nickname “I Want Whiskey.”

The practice of the era was for the local farm groups to set a universal wage for farm transient workers. A traveling harvest worker would earn the same money on any farm in Stutsman County, for example. This prevented any sort of bidding war for the workers necessary to bring in the harvest.

While the farmers were on one side of the equation, the unionized workers were on the other side. In some areas, violence broke out and the IWW was commonly blamed for any problems.

During the harvest season of 1913 farmers and union workers in the Minot area had several flare-ups. The union was blamed for a number of fires on farms and in grain fields. The tension in northwest North Dakota spread across the state as the harvest advanced.

By the end of September the harvest workers were ready to travel south. Back in 1913 the best way to travel across the country was by train. For the transient harvest workers the best way to travel was by hitching a ride on the train without paying.

This earned them another nickname. They were also called hobos.

The railroad had rules against this and employed an entire line of staff, known as “railroad detectives” to kick the hobos off the trains. But sometimes there wasn’t a railroad detective when you needed one.

Northern Pacific brakeman William Paulson tried to throw a hobo off the train a little west of Jamestown On Sept. 26, 1913 and got shot for his trouble. The wound was not serious and he was able to describe his assailant.

Paulson said he was shot by a man of about 5 foot 8 inches tall and 150 pounds. Both probably about average for a man of that era.

He went on to describe the man as better dressed than the average hobo.

There is no way to know if the gunman was a transient farm worker or union member. He may or may not have been one of the classic hobos of the day.

But we do know they probably started the search in the nearest men’s wear department of a high end clothing store.

PRAIRIE POST FOR JULY 19, 2011

It was a very busy time, in July, 1937, for Company H and Battery F of the North Dakota National Guard. These were the units here in Jamestown and all of their activities were right here in town.
First off there was Governor’s Day. Obviously, on Governor’s Day you invite the Gov. In this case it brought William Langer to town. He headlined a day that included a parade, baseball games, speeches and a few races.
Langer was early in his second term as governor. He served from 1933 to 1934 before being removed from office after charges of impropriety. He was cleared of the charges and reelected to the top office in the state in 1936.
The parade was led by the official Governor’s band from New Rockford along with all various local and regional parade groups. This was followed by a barbecue lunch in the park at noon.
Evidently the organizers of the event thought a political speech right after a heavy lunch might put the crowd to sleep. They gave everyone a break until 2 p.m. when Langer spoke to the crowd.
This was followed by horse, pony and bicycle races at the fairground. The baseball game featured the Adrian and Ypsilanti squads.
And to make it all loud and official, Battery F of the North Dakota National Guard fired a 17 gun salute to the governor.
But that was not all the the National Guard was busy with in July, 1937.
It seems they had a little trouble with vermin at the North Dakota State Hospital. Big time exterminators were called in to fumigate all the buildings.
Two or three squads of the local National Guard units were called out to guard the buildings during the fumigation process. An article in the Jamestown Sun on July 13 also suggested the guardsmen would play a part in guarding patients at the hospital during the fumigation process.
And it was quite a process.
The gasses used to fumigate the buildings were so toxic a single breath of air from within the building could be deadly even a day or two after the fumigation. The guardsmen were charged with keeping the public, patients and staff away from the buildings during the process.
The whole cleaning process was expected to last up to 10 days with the gasses intended to penetrate every crack and crevice of the patient care buildings.
The Sun article described the buildings at the State Hospital as “unspeakably filthy” and infested with “lice, bedbugs and cockroaches.”
The local National Guardsmen dealt with politicians and cockroaches in the same week. Those of you that are pessimistic about our political system may wonder how they told them apart.

There was a great turn out at the front porch chat at the Stutsman County Museum Sunday. I had a chance to tell the story of a little mystery and then put the case to the vote of those attending.

The story starts back about 199 years ago. Col. Robert Dickson of the English Army was tasked with recruiting Native Americans from this area to fight with the British in the War of 1812.

Dickson had a good deal of success. He married into the tribe that lived along the Elm River southwest of present day Ellendale. From that source he recruited about 25 warriors to go east and fight against the Americans.

Those Indians fought well and, according to their oral legends, were given a cannon captured from the Americans in battle. They brought that cannon back to this region and named the piece, “Little Dakota.”

But times were changing on the northern plains. The English influence was replaced by American. Many of the Indians that fought with the British had the medals and flags they had been given taken and burned.

And the Indians got rid of Little Dakota reportedly by throwing it in the James River somewhere south of the Pipestem Creek and north of the area of present day Oakes.

That is all a combination of American history and Indian lore.

Now we step ahead to the late 1890s.

A Jamestown area youth by the name of Dana Wright is riding horse along with his brother along the James River south of Jamestown. Near an abandon shanty they find a small cannon. In the 1960s he donates the canon to the Stutsman County Museum where it still is today.

Wright served as Stutsman County sheriff, an officer in the North Dakota National Guard and as a board member of the North Dakota Historical Society. He is an active researcher of the history of this area and North Dakota in general.

The cannon is about 15 inches long and slightly more than 3 inches in diameter. The caliber is about 1 1/2 inches. The cannon barrel is intact while the mounting bracket has been lost to history. The gun has no serial number or manufacturer’s markings.

Is this gun the lost “Little Dakota.”

The circumstantial evidence fits. The Indians would have only brought a small cannon back from the Ohio River country so it is the right size. It was found in the area where the legends say the gun was left.

As a student of history I really want to believe that Little Dakota is on display at the Lutz Mansion as a display of the Stutsman County Museum.

My biggest concern is that Wright, one of the great historians of the area and the original finder of the cannon, never called it Little Dakota.

There is no proof one way or the other. It is a mystery I don’t believe will ever be solved. But it does make a good story.

It was a time of reckoning at Fort Seward in late June and early July of 1874.

The soldiers were about to get a job review. If your performance was not up to standards, you could be laid off from the army.

Headquarters at the Department of Dakota, that would have been located at Fort Snelling in Minneapolis, sent the commanding officer of Fort Seward a letter asking him to perform the duty.

The letter said, “I am directed by the Department Commander to instruct you to call upon each company commander in your command to report by name all men therein who are considered by him as “habitually worthless.”

Not just worthless once in awhile, but “habitually worthless.”

The letter continued to say that they should consider soldiers who “if discharged would add to, or at least not distract, from the efficiency of the company.”

I’m guessing you had to be a pretty bad soldier if the company efficiency improved if you were sent on your way.

Unfortunately, most of us have worked with people like that at one job or another.

I’m not sure how many soldiers were booted from the army. The records are a little vague. Any of the soldiers discharged from the army in this manner would have been called “bobtailed” veterans.

The discharge papers a veteran would have been given when they exited the army in the 1870s had a portion at the bottom where the commanding officer could comment on the soldier’s character.

Officers that didn’t have anything good to say about a soldier would clip off the bottom of the discharge form. If you had good character and were in the good graces of your commander, he filled out the full form.

If you weren’t, the officer would clip off the bottom segment about character and give the soldier a short or bobtailed discharge. Sort of the dishonorable discharge of the 1870s.

I’m guessing being “habitually worthless,” led to a “bobtailed” discharge.

For those of you with an interest in history, and I’m guessing if you read this you have an interest in history, I’m speaking at the Lutz Mansion on July 3 as part of the Front Porch Chats.

I won’t give away the whole presentation, you’ll have to attend to hear the whole story, but I’m going to layout a bit of a mystery and ask those that attend to reach their own conclusion.

But, I will tell you the question I will ask that day. Does the Lutz Mansion museum have an artifact of the War of 1812 in its possession?

You can be the judge after I tell the story on the front porch of the Lutz Mansion this Sunday.

This weekend my home community of Monango will mark the 125th anniversary of existence. A century and a quarter where a town grew from a spot alongside railroad tracks to a community of more than 300 people before declining to its current population of 28. I’ve always looked at the community as the result of a little corporate greed. Let me explain. The mainline of the Northern Pacific passed through Jamestown in what is now North Dakota. The Soo Line passed through Aberdeen in what is now South Dakota. In 1884 the Milwaukee Road planned to build a line to connect the two communities that were separated by 100 miles of open prairie. They were so far along with the project that they had staked out the route. An enterprising group of pioneers from Pennsylvania had an idea. They followed the stakes along the planned route to the halfway point between the two railroad lines and founded their own town. They named the new spot on the map Keystone after the nickname of their old home state. I’m sure they thought that Keystone would boom and become a major player in the Dakotas once the railroad arrived. But one of the ways railroads made money off the construction of new lines was the sale of real estate. The Milwaukee did a little resurvey and moved the line 2 miles to the west. In 1886, when the railroad had built that far north, the line laid out the streets and lots of Monango. That summer they held an auction and the new town was born. That winter the people of Keystone rigged up bobsleds under their buildings and moved over to the new town. After all, if the railroad won’t come to you, you have to come to the railroad. The Milwaukee never completed the planned line north to Jamestown. It ends at Edgeley. But it is doubtful Monango, or Keystone for that matter, would have boomed as the midpoint on the short line. Railroads of the steam era traveled about 100 miles before a major service point. Think along the mainline of the Northern Pacific in North Dakota. Fargo, Jamestown, Bismarck and Dickinson are all about 100 miles apart and were all major railroad towns. At each of these communities the train would have changed crews and the engines would have been supplied with coal. So the town of Monango has passed a rather quiet 125 years of existence. In 1903 President Theodore Roosevelt passed through but it was the middle of the night and his train didn’t even stop. But over the 125 years thousands of boys and girls got their education in the town. And thousands of men and women made their lives there. And I’m one of those boys that received my education there culminating in a high school diploma in May, 1976. Which is probably not as big a deal as Teddy Roosevelt steaming through town in the middle of the night.

The Jamestown Alert could deliver a back handed complement with the best of them back in 1881.

About every month or so they ran a column called “We Surmise.” It was a chance for the editors of the Alert take a shot at whatever they thought deserved a little bit of criticism.

Like slow construction work.

“We surmise that the new elevator makes hast slowly,” the Alert wrote.

This was followed by “We surmise that the time is up for building the sidewalk along Fifth Avenue and it is some one’s business to attend to it.”

The editors may have given us an idea of what was delaying construction.

“We surmise that the Dakota House has two new dining room girls and that the boys go in the dining room more and stay later than of yore,” they wrote.

The editors practiced a little community promotion too.

“We surmise that there were three girl babies born this week and it wasn’t much of a week for babies either,” the editors commented. Along with, “We surmise that our school house isn’t large enough to accommodate the scholars.”

The community was small but growing at the time. The Will Elmer store, dealer in Drugs and Medicines, also sold Oil and Painting Stock.

Let’s hope they didn’t confuse their inventory.

And the Fields Jewelry Store advertised the finest quality violin strings.

The paper had a bit of criticism for the fall weather in 1881.

“We surmise that it is time to put ear laps on that straw hat,” they wrote.

But it was the citizens of Jamestown that drew the sharpest barbs.

“We surmise that the Order of the Knights of the Red Cross is not an anti-temperance society,” they wrote.

The Order of the Knights of the Red Cross was a Masonic order of the 1880s.

And that comment was mild compared to this more general statement about the young men of the community.

“We surmise that some of the young men are smoking opium,” the Alert commented.

Evidently drugs aren’t a new problem to the Jamestown area. And, like today, they weren’t the only problems facing the community.

“We surmise that Postmaster Kelley wants less swearing in the post office when there are ladies present,” the editors wrote.

But the biggest criticism, in the form of a very backhanded compliment, was aimed at the night life of Jamestown.

“We surmise that for the amount of bad whisky drank in Jamestown there is less fighting than one would expect,” commented the Alert pundits.

I think our community has improved in the 130 years since these comments. Or at least the quality of the whiskey has.

I’m in the process of putting together a list of all the Memorial Day events planned for the Jamestown Sun readership area.

Heard from Kensal and Woodworth but I’m sure that many other communities take some time to honor those that have made the great sacrifices necessary to keep this country free.

Email me at knorman@jamestownsun.com with the info. We’ll include it in our articles.

Also, if your town has any sort of celebration planned for this summer let me know. We’re planning out our summer schedules and would like to provide information about all the events in the region.

Keith