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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.”

7/13/2011: Elephants have long been used in a variety of ways, from Hannibal employing them during the Second Punic War, to providing the model for the main character of the children’s book Babar, or symbolizing the Republican Party. However, especially in Western culture, elephants are perhaps best known for their roles in zoos and circuses.

7/20/2011: Bonanza farms brought great publicity to Dakota Territory from 1874 through 1880.

7/25/2011: The USDA Hardiness Zones Map divides North America into eleven gardening zones: 1 being the coldest and requiring the hardiest plants, and 11 being the warmest.

7/27/2011: Around this date in 1965, archeologists in near Menoken and Fort Yates were carefully sifting through the North Dakota dirt. The State Historical Society, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Interior Department’s National Park Service were cooperating to excavate two ancient Indian villages before the sites were destroyed by the rising water of new reservoirs.

7/31/2011: If you tuned in yesterday, you know we left off when much of Fargo’s historic downtown was well hidden behind what were called “modernizations.” The only problem with these “modernizations” of the 1960s and ’70s was that they made downtown a whole lot uglier.

8/4/2011: Bordering Mercer County on the north and east are Lake Sakakawea and the Missouri River. The county contains over sixty miles of the Lewis and Clark Trail; including the location where the explorers met Sakakawea herself. I

8/11/2011: Settlers, speculators and squatters built a shanty-town on the Dakota side of the Red River the moment the Northern Pacific Railway surveyors showed any interest in the crossing, even though the area was still Indian land. US troops from Fort Abercrombie ran off unlawful squatters twice, but eventually the settlement grew into what we know today as the city of Fargo.

8/15/2011: When the Devils Lake area was settled in 1883, the beautiful lake drew many people to its shores. In July of 1886, the local business and professional men of Devils Lake began a movement to establish a summer resort on the lake.

8/16/2011: Part of Thomas Jefferson’s plan, when sending the Corps of Discovery across the American continent, was to foster positive relationships with the American Indians encountered along the way. Initial contact between Lewis and Clark and Native Americans would be a crucial first-step, but Jefferson hoped to further cement US-Indian relationships by inviting tribal leaders to Washington D.C. to introduce them to the wonders of American civilization and impress upon them the advisability of an alliance with the United States.