In America’s westward movement, new towns arose along rivers and railways, and townspeople had great hopes for their newly-established communities.
In 1872, a North Dakota frontier town called Edwinton sprang up where the Northern Pacific Railway would cross the Missouri River. Edwinton was a ramshackle village with log cabins made from cottonwood trees, and rudimentary businesses in canvas-tents. The following year, Northern Pacific authorities renamed Edwinton, calling it “Bismarck.”
On this date, in 1873, a New York Times “Special Correspondent” arrived in Bismarck by train. To his eyes, Bismarck was extremely rough-hewn, being “made up of eating shanties, gambler’s tents, and one-story wooden stores.”
Another Eastern reporter, arriving at the depot a little later, was surprised to see 400-to-500 people loitering around the train-station. Among the “waiting faces,” he saw blue-uniformed soldiers from nearby Fort Lincoln; along with lots of everyday, normal people; but he quickly perceived that Bismarck had some tough-looking inhabitants: “gamblers, pick-pockets, thieves, burglars, and murderers.” He noticed that “every belt had a revolver or two….” He said these tough guys roamed Bismarck’s dance-halls, saloons, and gambling-dens “like a pack of hungry wolves” looking for new victims.
Another writer counted 28 saloons and “seven houses of ill-fame.” He said the town apparently had “every kind of vice.”
An observer witnessed several violent disagreements, but concluded that if local ruffians got into quarrels, these were “generally among themselves.”
Inevitably, several quarrels escalated; and men got killed. In 1873, a desperado named “Spotty” Whalen and Army Private Thomas King were vying for the same woman, and Whalen murdered King. King’s fellow soldiers went after Whalen, but ended up killing Whalen’s friend, the “notorious Dave Mullen.”
In 1874, saloon-keeper Jack O’Neil got into a “shooting match,” and died “with his boots on,” as they used to say.
Some contemporaries wrote that Bismarck was “a very tough town.” But, if every one of those exaggerated stories were believed, it would seem that not a day would go by without somebody dying “with his boots on.”
While it was “true that a few men were killed” in early Bismarck, it was clear they “were the aggressors,” and had gotten what they deserved. And Bismarck’s upstanding citizens would soon bring forth an improved society as families settled there, with several churches established in 1873. “Law-and-order” became a reality, thus bringing an end to those ‘rough-and-tumble’ “frontier” days.
Dakota Datebook by Steve Hoffbeck, retired MSUM History Professor
Sources:
- Dateline July 17, 1873, “The New North-West,” New York Times, August 5, 1873, p. 2.
- “Dakota,” Minneapolis Tribune, May 21, 1873, p. 2.
- “Along the Northern Pacific,” Richmond [Indiana] Telegram, July 25, 1873, p. 1.
- W. A. Falconer, “When Bismarck Was Edwinton,” Bismarck Tribune, May 2, 1941, p. 9.
- W.A. Falconer, “History of Bismarck Closely Associated With Building of Railroad,” Bismarck Tribune, July 25, 1931, p. 6.
- “Frontier Town Made Capital of State, Grows Steadily, and Faces Future With Confidence,” Bismarck Tribune, September 14, 1922, p. 2.
- “Church Organization,” Bismarck Tribune, July 11, 1873, p. 4.
- “Libels on Bismarck,” Bismarck Tribune, July 11, 1873, p. 1.
- “A Boom at Bismarck,” Bismarck Tribune, August 31, 1883, p. 4.
- “Town Was a ‘Bad Specimen’ in 1876,” Bismarck Tribune, July 11, 1973, p. 12A.
- “Blood at Bismarck,” Sioux City Journal, November 14, 1873, p. 2; “A Soldier Shot,” Chicago Evening Mail, November 17, 1873, p. 2; “Crimes,” Minneapolis Tribune, November 12, 1873, p. 1.
- “Another Shooting Match,” Bismarck Tribune, December 16, 1874, p. 4.
