Lane Sunwall

3/9/2010: Governor William Langer was no stranger to controversy. The crafty lawyer from Casselton not only dominated the most rancorous era of state politics, but was perhaps the most ostentatious firebrand of them all.

2/1/2010: It was this date in 1937 that the State Historical Society of North Dakota acquired the Menoken Indian Village. Located a few miles east of Bismarck, the village was home to roughly 200 people and consisted of approximately 30 oval-shaped earth lodges as well as an elaborate fortification system.

1/6/2010: Following his conviction as a federal felon, Governor William Langer was summarily stripped of his office on July 17, 1934. For ordinary politicians, this would mean the end of their career. But William Langer was not your typical politician. With the ink not yet dry on his conviction papers, the crafty man from Casselton began his political comeback.

11/24/2009: Traditionally, stories involving both North Dakota and forests result in a bad joke, usually ending with a punch-line about the state's only trees being telephone poles. While the jokes are made in good fun, they contain a grain of truth. After all, the state is the least forested in the country, with trees covering only about one percent of North Dakota's total acreage. But despite the jokes, and the relatively few trees - well at least those that aren't being used to support phone lines - North Dakota was actually home to a National Forest covering over 14,000 acres in present-day Slope County.

11/18/2009: In the study of North Dakota's history, we are often confronted by the deeds and actions of the ‘great men' of the state's past; the grit of Theodore Roosevelt, the headstrong courage of George Armstrong Custer, the acrimonious governorships of William Langer or the fatalistic determination of Sitting Bull. Certainly, North Dakota history would have been much less colorful without Roosevelt, Custer, Sitting Bull or Langer, but the nature of the state would have remained the same. A handful of men, no matter how famous, did not create the customs and heritage of North Dakota. No, it was the ordinary people history is more apt to forget; those whose hard work and determination built the North Dakota we know today.

11/10/2009: In November of 1910, John Cowan, a well respected judge from Devils Lake, set a match to the tinderbox of prohibition by refusing to hear a case about two little "blind pigs."

10/22/2009: It was on this day in 1962 that the State Historical Society of North Dakota acquired a small, unimposing parcel of land just south of Milnor, North Dakota, known as Camp Buell. Today, it's little more than a quiet piece of prairie, but for one day on July 3, 1863, the little speck of land was the bustling overnight stopping point for General Henry Sibley and his army as they worked their way across the upper plains following the US-Dakota Conflict of 1862.

10/7/2009: "Go West, young man." This advice given by Horace Greeley was certainly apropos for the soldiers constructing the new US Army encampment on the Dakota plains near present-day Bismarck in 1872.

9/30/2009: One of North Dakota's most controversial governors, William Langer, was born this date in 1886 in northern Dakota Territory.

9/11/2009: Not least among intrepid explorers was the French scientist Joseph Nicolas Nicollet.