Carole Butcher

Hunter and fur trader Charles Bottineau ventured to the Red River Valley in 1787. His oldest child, Pierre, was born in 1817. Pierre was described as being well over six feet tall, “of manly instincts and gentlemanly deportment, polite, agreeable and of a kindly disposition, and always true to his word."

The rivalry between Grand Forks and Fargo was especially fierce in 1906. An agreement had been reached that the State Fair would alternate between Grand Forks and Fargo, with Fargo scheduled to host the fair for the first time. But there was some annoyance that Grand Forks was holding a Red River Valley Exposition just prior to Fargo’s fair.

Located in Rolette County, St. John is one of the oldest towns in North Dakota, dating back to its 1843 origins as a trading post. The 1880s, saw towns springing up in that region as people gravitated to the area’s trading posts. Dunseith and Belcourt were organized in 1884. And the city of Rolette is a relative latecomer, incorporated on this date in 1930.

The Metis are an indigenous group whose homeland is in Canada and the northern United States. They trace their heritage to North American tribes and mixed European settlers who were primarily French. The Canadian Constitution Act of 1982 legally recognized the Metis as indigenous people. In the United States, the Metis are considered part of the Chippewa tribe. The Metis developed a distinct culture and language that blended their French and Indian heritage that grew out of the fur trade.

Farmers saw an economic boon during World War I. They bought more acreage and invested in farm machinery. In the aftermath of the war, crop prices collapsed when the sudden decrease in demand resulted in oversupply. Farmers needing government assistance subsequently became an important voting bloc in the 1928 presidential election.

In the summer of 1919, a United States Army motorized expedition took sixty-two days to travel 3,251 miles from Washington DC to San Francisco. The convoy tested the mobility of the Army as it became increasingly motorized. The official observer for the War Department was a young Lieutenant Colonel named Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Historian Frederick Jackson Turner came to Chicago not for the World’s Fair like thousands of other people, but for the annual conference of the American Historical Association. On this date in 1893, Turner put the finishing touches on his Frontier Thesis, a speech he would give to the conference the following evening. Turner argued that the settlement of the American frontier was the foundation of a uniquely American culture.

On this date in 1919, a front-page article in the Bismarck Tribune explained how the newspaper scored a scoop and obtained a photograph of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, calling it “the most remarkable achievement of modern journalism.”

After serving in the Union Army during the Civil War, Colonel Clement Lounsberry moved west. He entered journalism as a writer for the Minneapolis Tribune, but he had something else in mind - establishing a newspaper wherever the Northern Pacific Railroad crossed the Missouri River. That plan became a reality in 1873 when the first issue of the Bismarck Tribune came off the presses.

The Wild West was not nearly as wild as it is portrayed in books, movies, and television. Life on the frontier was hard work, and that in turn created a need for entertainment, and there was no shortage of ways for people to spend their time and money.