Jayme L. Job

7/2/2013: Sheriffs and deputies from Fargo and Moorhead launched a large-scale manhunt on this date in 1923, after a robbery suspect killed a South Dakota sheriff and escaped near Moorhead. The suspect, Edwin Rust, was wanted on robbery charges in Brown County, South Dakota, and was being transported to Aberdeen by Sheriff Isaac Fulker.

7/1/2013: Beginning on this date in 1961, North Dakota would no longer have Justices of the Peace to administer local justice across the state. The State Legislature, in an attempt to reform the state’s judicial system, abolished the office in 1959, replacing it with a system of county courts and judges.

6/30/2013: When North Dakota became a state in 1889, it entered the Union as a dry state, making alcohol illegal.

6/25/2013: In 1916, after paramilitary forces led by Mexican General Francisco “Pancho” Villa began raiding U.S. border towns, President Wilson ordered U.S. General John Pershing to capture the Mexican leader.

6/23/2013: In June 1931, the Ladies Aid Society of the Zion Evangelical Church held a luncheon near Edgeley, North Dakota. Dozens of people travelled to the Mast family farm for the event, about fifteen miles north of the city.

6/22/2013: On June 17, 1921, a terrible flashflood struck the badlands near Medora, North Dakota.

6/19/2013: William Lemke, Fargo attorney and North Dakota congressman, announced that he would be entering the race for the United States presidency on this date in 1936.

6/16/2013: On June 16, 1887, a severe wind storm ripped through the University of North Dakota and destroyed much of the school’s main building. The west wing was demolished, its chimneys and cupola knocked to the ground. The school’s museum was a total loss, with most of the collection missing or damaged. This came less than three years after the school first opened.

6/15/2013: The Bismarck Tribune published a report on the death of a boy near Bloom, North Dakota, on this date in 1922, stating that blame placed on a Northern Pacific train for the death of the boy was in fact misplaced, and that the teenager’s skull was fractured from a single blow.

6/13/2013: On June 8, 1896 Richard Omand was digging a culvert on his rented land near Bloomer, Minnesota. A few feet below the surface, he struck something hard. Supposing the barrier to be a large rock, he began removing the tough clay from around it. Lo and behold, it was no rock, but a fossilized human being!