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1/27/2016: North Dakota is known for a variety of agricultural products. The state leads the country in honey and sunflowers, among other crops. Corn, wheat, and cattle are high on the list. Very few people would think of sheep, but there is a sheep history in the state.

2/5/2016: A smallpox epidemic in Fargo, Dakota Territory, forced drastic actions in 1883. On this date that year, Fargo Mayor William A. Kindred was given the authority by the city council to take measures to fight the outbreak. He set up a hospital, ordered the burning of clothing, and required doctors to report smallpox cases.

5/23/2016: Sherbrooke, North Dakota is a shadow of its former self. Once the county seat for Steele County, it’s now a ghost town surrounded by farmland. Once a thriving farming community, the old townsite is now home to several abandoned structures, slowly being reclaimed by nature.

5/24/2016: In 1986, People magazine did a story titled, “Lowest Paid Teacher in America.” Janice Herbranson taught kindergarten through sixth grade at the one-room school in McLeod, North Dakota. Her salary was only $6,800 a year.

6/30/2016: Fifty years ago the National Historic Preservation Act was created to help preserve the diverse archaeological and architectural treasures of America. In the early 1990s, two such buildings related to the early medical history of Grand Forks were in serious need of preservation.

7/7/2016: In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson announced the America the Beautiful initiative. The cornerstone of this program was the Highway Beautification Act. Among other things, the act called for the removal of billboards from Federal highways. First Lady Lady Bird Johnson was instrumental in the passage of the Act, which was not without controversy.

7/11/2016: Reuben “Chip “Unruh was born in 1925 in Golden Valley, North Dakota, and graduated from high school in the town of Zap. In 1943, Chip joined the Navy and went into aviation. He ended up getting his wings as a radio man and top turret gunner on a B-24. The B-24 is well known as one of the high altitude bombers that helped win the war in Europe, but the lesser-known Navy B-24s flew low altitude search and destroy missions against Japanese shipping in the Pacific. They were known as patrol bombers. Chip was assigned to a Navy Patrol Squadron on Iwo Jima. Chip and his crew flew missions against ships off the coast of Japan.

7/18/2016: The town of Bismarck, by the very nature of things, was destined to become a bustling city. Bismarck’s geography ensured its future, being located at the easiest, and narrowest, crossing of the mighty Missouri River. Bismarck was created by the Northern Pacific Railway, which brought newcomers to town after its tracks reached the crossing in 1873.

7/29/2016: For more than 150 years, newspapers have recorded the lives and times of people in North Dakota. The Frontier Scout was the first newspaper in modern North Dakota. It began in 1864 at Fort Union. The Bismarck Tribune followed, along with papers in Fargo, Grand Forks and Jamestown. Ten years after the Frontier Scout’s debut, 160 newspapers were publishing in Dakota Territory. A few of those early papers are still being published today – like the Bismarck Tribune and the Hillsboro Banner.

8/4/2016: Always the most well-to-do residential avenue in Grand Forks, Reeves Drive was home for the leaders and financiers of the community. Seven former-mayors lived along its shaded boulevards, and the wealthiest businessmen built expansive houses on Reeves Drive. One of the finest residences still stands at the corner of Reeves and Fourth Avenue, just west of the Red River, the former home of Robert H. McCoy, who lived from 1859 to 1926.