Carole Butcher

Sykeston was considered the county seat when Wells County was organized. In November 1884, Fessenden received more than three-fifths of the votes in an election to formally decide the county seat, but the matter was not settled, even with the vote. Newspapers reported that “Wells County is all torn up over a county seat fight.”

Herman Stern arrived in North Dakota from Germany in 1903 to work at the Straus Clothing Store in Casselton, which was owned by his cousin. He became the manager of the company’s second store in Valley City and made his home there for the next seventy years. Herman became a community leader and an enthusiastic booster of North Dakota. He was active in the Rotary and the Masons and was a strong supporter of the Boy Scouts.

Becoming an American citizen was a chaotic process in the early days of the United States. During what became known as the Old Law period, there was no official federal oversight of the citizenship process. Early laws allowed any municipal, county, state, or federal court to grant citizenship and did not require courts to issue certificates.

General Stephen H. Long was truly a renaissance man. He was a civil engineer, a soldier, an explorer, a surveyor, and an inventor. He made advances in the development of steam locomotives with his new designs. He taught mathematics at West Point. And although his career as an explorer was relatively short-lived, he covered over 26,000 miles in five expeditions.

In the early 1800s, the government had to figure out what to do with people already claiming land in the West. On this date in 1820, Congress passed the Land Act, allowing settlers to purchase the land they had claimed. They could buy 160 acres at $1.25 per acre. The Land Act made it possible for people of modest means to purchase land and settle down. It also marked the beginning of an organized effort to settle the West.

Voters today take for granted their right to elect their United States Senators. Americans have been directly electing their Senators for over a hundred years, but it wasn’t always this way. Our Founding Fathers believed that allowing state legislatures to elect Senators would strengthen the bond between the federal and state governments. Article I, Section 3 of the United States Constitution stated, 'The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, chosen by the legislature thereof for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote.'

In 1872, European Americans founded a modest settlement at what was called Missouri Crossing. It got its name because the Lewis and Clark Expedition crossed the river there on their journey to explore the Louisiana Purchase. The settlers named their new community Edwinton, after Edwin Ferry Johnson, an engineer with the Northern Pacific Railroad. Less than a year later, the name was changed to Bismarck, in honor of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, aiming to attract German immigrants.

Mount Tambora is a volcanic mountain in Indonesia. It may be hard to imagine how an eruption there could affect the Great Plains, especially from so far away on the other side of the world. But on this date in 1815, it did exactly that. The eruption began on April 5, with small tremors hinting at a major event. Then, on the evening of April 10, a cataclysmic explosion blew the mountain apart. A thick cloud of hot rock fragments and gases, known as a pyroclastic flow, rolled down the mountainside. The explosion and the tsunamis it triggered killed 10,000 people and destroyed 35,000 homes. And that was just the beginning.

No proposed tariff has ever been universally popular among all Americans. In the early 1900s, a tariff proposal highlighted the tensions between differing interests. Many Americans supported tariffs to discourage monopolies from raising prices. Industrialists believed tariffs on foreign products would protect their business interests. However, a tariff that protected one interest could harm another. New England, which produced no coal, opposed a tariff on that product. But Pennsylvania, a major coal producer, strongly supported the tariff.

Wildfires have historically played an important role in the ecology of the Great Plains. Fires on the plains help remove accumulated litter, stimulate native grass growth, and slow the spread of invasive plants.