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2/8/2004: The world’s shortest interstate streetcar line used to run between Wahpeton and Breckenridge. The route was 1.14 miles long, transported about 750 passengers a day, and ran from 1910 to 1925. It traveled about 15-20 miles per hour and provided one of the earliest means of traveling between the two towns. A few pieces of the rail are still visible in the sidewalk outside the streetcar garage that still stands in Breckenridge. There were always two streetcars running simultaneously; a round-trip loop took 30 minutes.

2/10/2004: Today marks the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Little Country Theatre at NDSU. During the early 1900s, North Dakota Agricultural College was on the cutting edge of a bold experiment known as the “country life movement.” The aim was to bring theater to the masses, especially rural communities, by celebrating regional folk lore and history.

2/18/2004: It was on this date in 1735 that the first opera performance in America took place. The opera was Flora, and it was performed in Charleston, South Carolina.

2/19/2004: Today marks the anniversary of Polly Hamilton, who died in Chicago in 1969 under the name, Edythe Black. Since 1934, Polly’s name had been forever linked to notorious gangster, John Dillinger. Today we bring you part one of their story.

2/20/2004: Yesterday, we brought you part one in the story of how Fargo native, Polly Hamilton, became the girlfriend of John Dillinger and was with him when the FBI gunned him down outside a Chicago movie theater. Hamilton claimed she knew the man only as Jimmy Lawrence and went into hiding.

2/25/2004: It was on this day in 1891 that the North Dakota Methodists founded a private school in Wahpeton, the Red River Valley University; it was a school that would move several times before settling into its final phase. At one point, Bishop Cushman was on the Board of Directors.

3/4/2004: About this time in 1911, the town of Milton and the surrounding communities were reeling from a series of events that led to the murder trial of one of the town’s most highly regarded citizens, Dr. J. J. Reilly. It started on February 23rd with the unexpected death of 22 year-old Mrs. Will Drury, who had married just 7 weeks before.

3/8/2004: Today marks the anniversary of the very first Winter Show, which was held in Valley City March 8-11, 1938. A 1938 editorial in the Valley City Times-Record described it as an educational, non-profit event to “bring together the best in the state in livestock, farm crops, manufactured products, Homemakers, 4-H Clubs and Future Farmers of America exhibits combined with high-class entertainment.” It is now the Dakotas’ longest running agricultural show.

3/27/2004: Geological research conducted between the late 1940s and late 1970s revealed more than 40 land deposits with increased radioactivity in Bowman, Slope, Stark, Billings, and Golden Valley counties, where uranium was found embedded in lignite coal. Nobody was allowed to possess uranium except the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.

4/3/2004: Tomorrow is the anniversary of North Dakota’s first television station,, going on the air as a regular commercial station. It was 1953, and that first year, Minot’s KCJB – now KXMC – chartered a plane to fly in, from Minneapolis, taped coverage of each day of the World Series.