Lise Erdrich

On this date in 1906, according to City Attorney Aaron Bessie of Wahpeton, he filed papers that had been served on Ruby Weston the previous day. Bessie asserted that public records could be viewed by anyone in the register of deeds office and sheriff’s process docket, under the date of February 21, 1906.

On this date in 1885, Mrs. Dill awaited trial in the Richland County jail. The Wahpeton paper reported that a search of the Dill farm had turned up the missing August Dill, buried in the cow stable under a pile of manure. Mrs. Dill, her sons, and a hired man were arrested and taken to Wahpeton. Mrs. Dill confessed, saying she alone was the murderer and had placed the body there without help.

On this date in 1904, Pat Gourneau was born at Turtle Mountain, rushed by sleigh to the priest for baptism, and given little chance of survival due to his premature birth.

On this date in 1904, a Fargo newspaper published a sympathetic story about a young woman arrested at a bawdy house in Wahpeton. She went by the professional name Leo Williams and was described as a woman of unusual beauty. Charges of grand larceny had been brought by Cora Oman, the notorious madam who ran a house in Moorhead. Leo offered no resistance when arrested, but she stated she was innocent and that the entire case was motivated by spite.

In January 1857, a survey party left St. Cloud, Minnesota, bound for the headwaters of the Red River. Despite winter hazards, they were determined to beat rivals to the region. The expedition was led by French-Chippewa guides Charles and Pierre Bottineau. Pierre, known as the Kit Carson of the Northwest, was a famous frontiersman and surveyor.

The twelfth day of Christmas or Twelfth Night, is known as Kings Day at Turtle Mountain. In Catholic tradition, it is the Feast of Epiphany, honoring the three wise men who traveled to Bethlehem to see the Christ Child.

In 1958, 96-year-old Joseph Gourneau, father of Turtle Mountain Chippewa tribal chairman and historian Pat Gourneau, was interviewed by Bob Cory of the Minot Daily News. Joseph was one of the last generations born to follow the buffalo.

Elders who were children in the 1930s at Turtle Mountain remembered Midnight Mass as the main celebration of Christmas. Families traveled by sleigh to the church, with children bundled under blankets. Most people were Catholic, their roots tracing back to the late 1700s fur trade when Indigenous women married French and Scottish workers.

On this date in 1948, a flood of oratory marked the closing of the trial of August Pusch, who was charged with the poisoning death of his wife. The jury began deliberations in what was headlined as Wahpeton’s most bizarre murder trial.

On this date in 1909, Wahpeton newspapers congratulated Eugene Schuler on his federal post office and Catholic church construction at Kearney, Nebraska. His firm soon secured federal contracts across the western U.S., including the Wahpeton post office in 1915. Schuler’s Northwestern Construction Company built public buildings, Catholic churches, schools, private residences, and commercial and industrial facilities in at least 12 states.