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10/23/2014: Vice Presidential candidate Richard Nixon drew large crowds when he appeared on the campaign trail on this date in 1952. He started the day in Moorhead. His train arrived twenty minutes late, and when it did arrive, it overshot the station. The large crowd had to wait while the train backed up.

10/24/2014: For North Dakota, Prohibition had come with statehood in 1889. Although ban on alcohol was extremely unpopular with the majority of citizens in the state, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and ministerial associations managed to thwart any efforts to amend the Constitution and repeal the laws. Bootleggers and “blind piggers” became folk heroes, and bathtub gin became commonplace. Prosecuting violators was difficult, and people like Frank “Shoot to Kill” Watkins worked for the Enforcement League in an attempt to stop the flow of illegal booze.

10/29/2014: The road to statehood had been a long, difficult journey encompassing thirty-two years. Officially it began on March 2, 1861, when the Organic Act creating the Territory of Dakota was issued; however, attempts at statehood had an earlier beginning.

12/23/2013: In 1888, immigrants arrived in Dakota Territory at the rate of 1,000 month. Whether seeking a new life, new career or freedom, for most, the life of a pioneer was a hard one. It was difficult creating a farm or ranch from the treeless, trackless prairie, often devoid of neighbors. A wagon load of rough lumber was hauled from the nearest railroad station and a plain, frame shack was built. Tar paper coated the outside walls. Many settlers laid sod walls to add warmth and also to add strength to the flimsy structure to keep if from blowing away in the harsh prairie winds.

1/1/2014: Catfish have always thrived in the mud-colored waters of the Red River. The face of a big catfish is familiar to anglers, for its broad head is ugly-looking and gigantic in proportion to its body. The barbels extending from around its mouth look like cat whiskers, hence the name “catfish.”

1/6/2014: A barn was always the biggest building on a farm one hundred years ago. For farm kids, the hayloft in the barn was a place of wonderment, full of hay and memories. In the hayloft, children worked hard, getting hay-bales or loose hay packed tightly into every space, and they played hard, swinging on ropes, shooting basketballs into a hoop, or making hay-forts, pretending to be Tarzan, a soldier or a sports star. But the hayloft could also be awe-inspiring for its hazards, especially those associated with fire.

1/8/2014: A Fargo postal carrier reported the success of his new winter contraption on this day in 1928.

1/9/2014: On this date in 1933, Mr. Felix Renville and his wife were getting ready to travel from their home in Fort Yates to New York to appear on Robert Ripley's radio program, "Believe It or Not."

1/13/2014: The story of the first African-American baseball player in Grand Forks, a man named Bishop Dorsey, is one of great athletic glory – but marred by deep woe.

1/15/2014: Otto Chenoweth was born to a wealthy Massachusetts family, but the lure of the Wild West brought him to Wyoming in the 1880s, where he found friendship among cattle rustlers and horse thieves.