Christina Sunwall

7/20/2009: Great Northern Railway president Ralph Budd loved history. So, when he needed to enhance the profitability of the railroad in the early 1920s, he combined his personal and professional interests to come up with a winning plan: the Upper Missouri Historical Expedition.

7/14/2009: Before integrating Major League Baseball and creating the first players' pension fund, Baseball Commissioner Albert "Happy" Chandler was a young college kid playing ball on the northern plains.

7/4/2009: Two years ago on this date, a crowd gathered at Minot's Roosevelt Park to dedicate the Medal of Honor Memorial.

7/2/2009: The Northern Pacific's struggle to finance and complete the nation's second transcontinental railroad is a familiar story to most North Dakotans. Less familiar was the equaling daunting task of securing a charter from the federal government to build that line.

6/21/2009: For the Custers, the 7th Cavalry was a family affair. Five relatives served alongside George Armstrong Custer including his little brother, Boston or "Bos" Custer.

6/20/2009: Twenty-two years ago this weekend, "America's Pastor," the Reverend Billy Graham, arrived in Fargo for the Greater Red River Valley Billy Graham Crusade. After a year of planning, nearly 66,000 people packed into NDSU's Dacotah Field over the course of three days, aided by thousands of volunteers.

6/1/2009: If you're familiar with your territorial governors, you probably remember Dakota's seventh executive, Nehemiah Ordway, as the one who successfully pushed for the relocation of the territorial capitol from Yankton to Bismarck. Or, you may remember him as the corrupt governor removed from office for questionable political practices.

5/30/2009: Work on the Northern Pacific Railway advanced rapidly across the Dakota prairie until the Financial Panic of 1873 brought construction to a screeching halt at Bismarck.

5/28/2009: As the men of the First Minnesota Mounted Rangers followed General Sibley through Barnes County in July of 1863, they named several overnight camp locations after doctors who accompanied the expedition; doctors like Samuel Sheardown and Lucius Smith. When the men made camp on July 13 near a beautiful cluster of freshwater lakes, they named the site after Regimental Surgeon Dr. Josiah S. Weiser. Within weeks, the camp named for Dr. Weiser would take on a whole new significance.

5/27/2009: The issue of slavery and its expansion into new territories erupted as the great political debate of the mid-19th century; eventually leading to secession and civil war.