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7/2/2007: In 1864, Congress chartered the Northern Pacific Railroad and gave it a 50-million acre land grant to build a railroad from Duluth to Puget Sound. President Abraham Lincoln signed the charter on this date in 1864.

7/24/2007: Kenneth William “K.W.” Simons was born on this date in 1927, the son of Kenneth Wetherill and Marie (Malloy) Simons. Born and raised in Bismarck, Simons became a teacher and political activist.

7/26/2007: Expectations were high on July 12, 1912 when the Ray Pioneer announced the upcoming festivities to take place at the Ray Grain Palace Festival. The festival would feature a palace constructed entirely of the finest sheaves of grain, grasses, fruits and vegetables grown in the county. The palace was something never before attempted, but, reported the Pioneer, “the prospects now assure success…It will be a standing advertisement of the great productiveness of the rich soil in this vicinity and is destined to be the pride of the community.” Decorators and trimmers worked hard to construct the palace while boosters worked hard to plan the festival.

7/31/2007: As one might suspect, on a wide open North Dakota prairie, when the work is done for the day, it’s time for stories. Sometimes, when the facts were a little skimpy, old timers of the area would improvise.

8/2/2007: Walhalla, in Pembina County of northeastern North Dakota, was incorporated in August 1918. However, the town, which was first called St. Joseph, had a very colorful and historical background for many years before that.

8/9/2007: A poor Fargo morning woke up to find herself very much deceived on this day in 1903. The woman, Mrs. Bernblott, had been the cause of some stir in the city of Fargo in recent weeks, but it had been hoped that her problems had been alleviated and that she would live happily ever after after all. But, as she awoke on that morning, she found her situation anything but a happy one.

8/21/2007: Bonanza farms brought attention and wealth to northern Dakota Territory in the 1870s. George Cass, president of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, and Benjamin Cheney, a railroad director, established the first bonanza farm in the Red River Valley near Casselton, with 13,440 acres of Northern Pacific land.

8/28/2007: On this date in 1860, United States Army Lt. Colonel John J. Abercrombie established a fort at the head of navigation on the west bank of the Red River of the North, in what is now Richland County. This became the first military post to be built in what was eventually to become North Dakota.

8/30/2007: Leo Killion, well-known musical composer, was born on this date in 1908. He was born in Towner and grew up in Minneapolis, learning many Swedish folk songs along the way. He often wrote nonsense lyrics to go with the tunes he was hearing.

9/6/2007: On this date in 1869, Justina Fisher was born in Tarutino, Bessarabien, in South Russia. When Justina was sixteen, she came to America with her parents, arriving in Scotland, South Dakota. A year later, in 1885, Justina followed her parents north, to a homestead in the hills twenty miles south of present day Kulm, North Dakota.