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10/29/2012: The various counties of North Dakota did not always exist as they are laid out today. As people began to fill in the open prairies, towns and townships formed, and soon, different counties began to look for change – breaking off sections, forming together, and establishing county borders. Have you ever heard of Villard County? Wallace? Flannery? Or how about DeSmet County? These all existed in 1885 when the territorial census was taken. Then, Morton County included the area of today’s Grant County; Kidder County was half its size; and so on.

10/31/2012: If children were "trick or treating" in Minot in 1935, it’s doubtful Agnes Brown was paying much attention. Abandoned by her husband two days earlier, she gave birth on this date to their son, Dale Duward Brown. But Agnes did not feel sorry for herself. After Dale became a famous basketball coach, he recalled that she was never bitter toward the man who abandoned her. With only an eighth-grade education, she relied on welfare, babysitting and cleaning houses to make ends meet.

9/21/2012: Preparing for the often long, often hard, and often snowy winters in North Dakota often means changing to snow tires, buying sweaters and keeping food, water and blankets in the car. But for those living in rural areas in the 1930s, it was a greater ordeal … finishing the harvest, canning and even cutting roadside weeds. That’s right … weeds.

9/26/2012: In September of 1925, Theodore Roosevelt’s famous cabin did not sit amidst the crags and buttes of the badlands, but in Bismarck on the Capitol grounds.

9/16/2012: On this date in 1905, laborers worked to lay down a new stretch of the Soo Line railroad from Thief River Falls to Kenmare through “magnificent wheat country.” The distance was about 300 miles, and by September, they were laying about five miles of track a day, with hopes to finish by mid-October.

9/23/2012: In the late 1880s, entertainment was often hard to find and mostly centered around weddings, opera houses and productions at the local high school. However, there was one event with roots going back to the ancients – horse racing.

9/27/2012: Emma Lazarus wrote the sonnet “The New Colossus,” which has hung inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty since 1903.

9/30/2012: Joseph Rozum, a bootlegger, was released from prison but was soon arrested for the fatal shooting of Louis Starman in January of 1904 and sentenced to death by hanging. He was sent to the Penitentiary to await his execution scheduled for October 21.

9/18/2012: On this date in 1929, citizens in Linton were discussing how they could garner better radio reception. They had heard that an expert in the field, L. M. Parks of Minneapolis, was hired in Ellendale, and also in Williston, to clear up interference, and soon after, discussion of hiring him began in Linton.

9/22/2012: The story was circulating on this date in 1929, that Deputy Sheriff Warnes of McKenzie County was travelling when he came upon a car going in the same direction. He was in a hurry and tried to pass, but whenever he came close, it would cut in his way, forcing him back or into the ditch.