The greatest invention of the 20th century was the automobile. The mobility changed everyday life more than any other innovation. However, there were plenty of people who continued to depend upon horses.
The transition from horses to cars created a problem in towns and cities across North Dakota. Farmers who drove horse-drawn wagons wanted to be able to leave them in front of a store, tied securely to a hitching post. However, storekeepers complained that horses obstructed business traffic and the horse manure was a terribly “untidy and unsanitary element on the streets.”
Virtually every town had a livery stable, where horses could be kept, fed, and watered, but use of livery services were often considered too much fussiness for a short trip to town. As one observer wrote: “If a farmer drives into a city he either has to take his team to a livery barn or have someone hold the horses while he does his trading.”
A farmer said: “I do not mind paying twenty-five cents asked by the livery people for putting my horses up, but I do not like to hitch and unhitch my horses” for a half-hour spent in town. Likewise, he did not always have someone to hold his team. He feared that if he just left his horses standing unattended, a noisy automobile or bell-clanging streetcar would “frighten the animals” and cause his horses and wagon to become a dangerous runaway.
In the years from 1905 through 1915, numerous towns in the state, including Milnor, Granville, and Forbes, removed hitching posts from main-street business districts.
New Rockford was rocked by controversy over the posts, after the local newspaper editor advocated cleaning up Main Street. New Rockford subsequently removed all downtown hitching-posts in 1906, but merchants and farmers raised a ruckus, and it was on this date in 1907 that the Williston Graphic newspaper reported that New Rockford put the hitching-posts back up.
The issue finally got resolved two years later when New Rockford’s town supervisors had all of the hitching-posts on main streets removed to help address the horse manure problem.
The years when cars replaced horses obviously included a few ‘bumps in the road,’ but the historic, old-fashioned hitching posts ultimately faded from North Dakota’s landscape.
Dakota Datebook written by Dr. Steve Hoffbeck, MSUM History Department.
Sources: “New Rockford,” Williston Graphic, July 18, 1907, p. 8.
“The New Rockford Transcript,” Grand Forks Herald, August 7, 1906, p. 7.
“Out in New Rockford,” Grand Forks Herald, August 9, 1909, p. 4.
“Lack of Hitching Yard Causes Them Much Inconvenience in Trading in City,” Grand Forks Herald, January 30, 1911, p. 6.
“At Milnor,” Bismarck Tribune, July 6, 1905, p. 7; “All the Hitching Posts . . . in Forbes,” Valley City Weekly Times-Record, May 6, 1915, p. 2; “The Merchants at Granville,” Bismarck Tribune, June 25, 1907, p. 4; “The Granville Council,” Grand Forks Herald, June 23, 1907, p. 4.
“Hitching Posts,” Grand Forks Herald, June 2, 1911, p. 4.
“Say There is Need for Hitching Posts,” Grand Forks Herald, November 27, 1921, p. 11.
