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6/16/2011: Profit was the driving force behind John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company. The objective: deliver the most furs at the lowest possible cost while discouraging competition. To such ends, the American Fur Company constructed Fort Union in 1827 at the strategic location of the Missouri and Yellowstone confluence, effectively eliminating small opposition posts in the region.

6/18/2011: The first Presbyterian Church services in Kintyre were conducted in August 1905. Construction of a church building started in 1908, and it was dedicated in 1909 on Easter Sunday. And on this date in 1939, thirty years after its dedication, the church was alight both morning and afternoon with two wedding ceremonies—marking the first time anyone married there!

6/20/2011: Born in 1850 in Maine, Edwin Fremont Ladd was originally planning on becoming a doctor when he took an offer from the New York Experiment Station, where he found his passion and worked first as assistant and then chief chemist.

6/23/2011: On this date in 1939, a permanent club, the first known of its kind in the United States, officially formed in McHenry County. Prestigious as it was, membership was not so difficult to attain.

6/29/2011: June has always been a month for making hay. Farmers make enough hay to last through the long winter months – before livestock could again be turned out to eat grass in pastures and meadows.

7/1/2011: What would it be like to see greatness up-close and personally? In baseball, what would it be like to try to get a base hit off a Hall of Fame pitcher? On this date in 1959, a young man from Velva named Bob Bodine got that chance when he faced legendary pitcher Satchel Paige.

7/3/2011: On this date in 1876, Captain Grant Marsh and his steamboat, the Far West, embarked on their famous 700-mile dash from Fort Pease, Montana to Bismarck.

7/4/2011: Who doesn’t love the fireworks, potato salads, and parades that come with the Fourth of July celebrations each year? North Dakotans have enjoyed Fourth of July festivities for generations. For instance, in 1889, the Bismarck Tribune reported that their Fourth was filled with “Handsome Men, Charming Ladies, Splendid Steeds, Charging Steeds, and Brilliant Decorations.”

7/7/2011: Dwight Zimmerley, of Cogswell, North Dakota, set a non-stop flight world record on this date in 1929, flying a Barling NB-3 light aircraft solo 1,725 miles across North America, from Brownsville, Texas, to Winnipeg, Canada.

7/9/2011: A Valley City man arrived in Chicago on this day in 1902 on a mission to save the city. Otto Faust left a wife, eight children, and a 1,400-acre farm after receiving a vision from God. Faust claimed that “…he was told that Chicago was to be damned unless he came to the city and saved it.”