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9/18/2004: About 40 miles south of Wishek is the town of Eureka, SD, population about 1,000. The first white farmers there were mainly Germans from Russia who prospered because of their specialty: dry-land farming. The town was at the farthest end of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroads, and acted as a funnel through which the region’s grain fields were emptied, and in the 1890s, Eureka became known as the “wheat capital of the world.”

9/25/2004: The first private school in Jamestown was started in 1879 by a newcomer, J.J. Nierling. He arrived in town in the middle of the winter and rented a room for his school in a building that later became a fire hall. Nierling “canvassed the neighborhood for scholars,” offering classes in bookkeeping, reading, spelling, geography and penmanship. Tuition was $1 per student, per month.

10/4/2004: In 1895, the New York Tribune reported the bicycle was “of more importance to mankind than all the victories and defeats of Napoleon, with the First and Second Punic Wars...thrown in.” A hundred years later, the Minnesota Historical Society published an article by Bemidji professor Ron Spreng titled: The 1890s Bicycling Craze in the Red River Valley. Spreng’s research revealed many surprises; for example, who would have thought it was bicycle mania that led to the “first concerted movement for improved roads?”

10/6/2004: Yesterday we told you about the Irishmen – or Fenians – who wanted to invade Canada by way of the United States. The Fenains’ goal was to hold Canada hostage until England granted Ireland its freedom. The movement was, in fact, the birth of the Irish Republican Army – or IRA.

6/22/2004: North Dakota Supreme Court Justice Gudmundur Grimson was born in Iceland in 1878. When he was four, his family of 15 immigrated to Dakota Territory and settled north of Milton, and it was on this date in 1965 that Grimson died. Today we bring you part one of his 3-part story.

6/27/2004: The smallest items owned by the North Dakota Heritage Center in Bismarck are samples of pollen grains that are from 10 to 12 thousand years old.

7/20/2004: Today is Carl Ben Eielson’s birthday. He was born 107 years ago in Hatton, and today we’re going to talk about his early days in aviation.

6/21/2004: It was on this date in 1896 that Dorothy Hayes Stickney was born in Dickinson. She was the daughter of Victor Hugo Stickney, also known as the “cowboy doctor.”

6/24/2004: This is part 3 of the story of Cavalier County State’s Attorney Gudmundur Grimson, who in 1922 prosecuted a case involving a Munich boy’s death by flogging in a Florida forced-labor camp.

7/3/2004: On this day in 1949, singer and actor Gene Autry was in North Dakota to perform at the annual Mandan Rodeo with his backup band, the Cass County Boys – that’s Cass County, Texas, not North Dakota.