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9/15/2016: An early North Dakota governor, who died a dramatic death, had a humble birth and upbringing in Minnesota. Frank Arlington Briggs was born on this date in 1858. He was the only son of his parents’ four children. His father Thomas was a carpenter, successful enough to acquire servants at one point.

9/19/2016: The railroad could make or break any town in North Dakota’s early years. New Leipzig can tell you that, born from a railroad bypass and a previous Leipzig. Little remains of Old Leipzig, located about eight miles north of Elgin, North Dakota. The tiny town did OK for itself early on, starting with a post office established on this date in 1896. Daniel Sprecher, a later postmaster, named the community after a town in Bessarabia that in turn had been named after a town in Germany.

9/20/2016: For many years, humankind has quested for a machine of perpetual motion, something mechanized that would not stop moving. The first documented attempt comes from the Indian author Bhaskara around 1159. The machine was a wheel with containers of mercury around its rim, which was supposed to always maintain weight on one side as it spun, and thus keep moving.

10/24/2016: Pyromania is the urge to set and watch fires. It’s not about setting fires for material gain or to try to hurt anyone. Instead, the pyromaniac is simply fascinated by fires, and feels compelled to light and watch them.

10/25/2016: The turn of the century is a time defined by snow for Grand Forks. If the blizzards, storms and flooding of 1996-97 weren’t enough, the autumn of 2001 packed another punch.

11/9/2016: Today is the birthday of Esther Burnett Horne, who was featured in “Essie’s Story: The Life and Legacy of a Shoshone Teacher.” Essie was born in 1909, and the book, which she co-authored with Sally McBeth, was published in 1998, a year before Essie died.

11/16/2016: The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services … COPS for short … is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice. In North Dakota, it has helped fund 273 additional positions at 73 North Dakota law enforcement agencies. The idea behind community policing is to build trust and mutual respect between police and communities. It emphasizes personal contact between police and citizens, combining traditional law enforcement with prevention, problem solving, and community engagement.

11/22/2016: A number of communities have come and gone in McKenzie County, where Watford City sits at pretty much the heart of everything. A century ago, however, many towns dotted the prairie in that largest county in the state.

11/28/2016: Today’s story is about fear and snowstorms and perilous travel over the prairies in November 1908. There was a man named Edgar A. Hull who lived in Burleigh County, 32 miles east of Bismarck, near Driscoll. Mr. Hull and his wife, Florence, lived on a farm with their six children. Besides farming, Hull published the local newspaper, the Driscoll News. And this busy editor also printed the Wilton News.

11/30/2016: On this date in 1904, painter Clyfford Still was born in Grandin, North Dakota. Mr. Still is one of the founders of Abstract Expressionism. He and his art influenced contemporaries like Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and Barnett Newman.