The laundry business became competitive in Bismarck in 1877, when two Chinese businessmen, Sing Lee and Sam Lung, opened for business. Since the Northern Pacific Railroad had not yet crossed the Missouri River, the laundrymen came up from the Black Hills, where many of their nationality were serving the new goldfields.
A few years ago a popular author came out with a popular book titled, The Children’s Blizzard. Credit where due: he effectively captures the catastrophe and trauma that overwhelmed the people of the plains on 12 January 1888. They called it “the children’s blizzard” for the same reason that it seared a deep scar into historical memory — because of the many schoolchildren, from North Dakota down into Oklahoma, who were caught out in the storm, scores perishing, along with their teachers.
In March of 1916 the Valley City Record reported a battle having taken place in Hobart Township — but the paper called it a “sham battle.” A battle against whitetail jackrabbits, which had come to be regarded as an agricultural pest, particularly for their consumption of alfalfa. And the Great War was on, providing rhetorical inspiration for the event.