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10/30/2005: On this date in 1922, Governor Rangvold Nestos pushed a button that officially started the machinery of the soon-to-be-completed North Dakota Mill and Elevator.

10/31/2005: The town of Sims had a population of more than 1,000 people in 1884. It was only one year old, but a coal-mining boom, plus a brickyard, brought people to town in droves. Just six years later, only about 400 remained. The post office closed on this date in 1947, and Sims is now pretty much a ghost town.

11/3/2005: The first football game between the University of North Dakota and the North Dakota Agricultural College (now NDSU) took place on this date in 1894.

12/9/2005: Today’s story is not a comforting one. It’s about an uncommon crime – patricide. While it’s not terribly unusual for children to kill their parents, the instances of girls killing their fathers is much lower.

12/11/2005: When World War I broke out, a large number of North Dakotans still had fairly strong ties to the old country. At this time in 1916, the Bismarck Tribune published a story that showed the lengths to which some had to go to prove they weren’t spies for the enemy.

12/10/2005: William Medora Pruitt was known as “Bill Proot” in 1913, when he was making his way east to New York. A scout for Henry W. Savage, a New York stage and film producer, had “discovered” Pruitt while the cowboy was entertaining at Glacier Park. Pruitt sang at a party hosted by Louis W. Hill, president of the Great Northern Railroad.

12/12/2005: Owners of North Dakota’s grain milling businesses were in an uproar during this period in 1908. Bleached flour had just been outlawed through the efforts of Professor E. F. Ladd. As you may recall from earlier Datebooks, Ladd was a scientist at the North Dakota Agricultural College who became one of the Nation’s foremost crusaders for the pure food and drug laws.

12/14/2005: Baseball fans had mixed emotions at this time in 1966. Five days earlier, the Yankees traded home-run king Roger Maris to the St. Louis Cardinals in an even swap for infielder Charlie Smith. As one subway rider in New York put it, “You mean to say all MacPhail could get for Maris was Charley Smith?”

12/13/2005: Sparkie is just one nickname given to Lyndon Earl Marshall. The eighth of nine children, Lyndon was born to Albert and Maude Marshall on the family’s Hereford ranch near Forbes, ND, on this date in 1914.

12/15/2005: Residents in Mercer County were mystified by the death of a popular young rancher north of Beulah on November 3, 1916. At around noon, John Maier found his brother, Carl*, lying beside a public road between their farm and Beulah. Powder burns on Carl’s skin and clothing showed he’d been shot point blank, “once under his left arm and again in the chest, at the spot where the first bullet came out.” In the hospital he regained consciousness only long enough to say he was shot with his own 30-30 rifle by a man riding a white horse.