North Dakota

The Links of North Dakota is a golf course on Red Mike Hill. It is a gorgeous area, but this idyllic landscape was once rife with controversy. It began with Stan Weeks. Weeks wanted to build a golf course and asked Stephen Kay, a course designer, to help. Once they found Red Mike Hill, Kay said, “...I could work until I was 95 and never get a better site.” Weeks needed help buying it so he recruited Mike Ames, a water irrigation expert. They tried to raise $1 million but only raised $300,000. They went forward anyway, saving money by building a very natural course.

On this date in 1890, sparks were flying on the floor of the senate during North Dakota's first legislative session. The attorney general was called a brainless parrot, and two senators were censured for insults. Republican Senators Frederick Barlow, of Barlow, and David Dodds, of Lakota, had opposed a bill, and in doing so, they compared other senators to “unprincipled demagogues, political deadbeats and shysters of every stamp and affiliation.”

Dakota Territory existed for 28 years – from 1861, just days before Abraham Lincoln took office, until 1889, when the territory was divided along the 46th parallel, with North and South Dakota admitted as states.

Professor H.L. Bolley began his career at NDAC. While he specialized in flax, he was also concerned about wildlife. On this date in 1907, the Hope Pioneer published a letter written by Bolley that addressed his concern that the state’s wildlife, especially game birds, were being driven out of the state because of ill-advised hunting policies.

North Dakota has welcomed several royal visitors over the years. On this date in 1926, Queen Marie of Romania and her children -- Princess Ileana and Prince Nicholas -- made their way west by train through North Dakota, on a tour of the United States. Queen Marie was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria.

When the Salk polio vaccine rolled out in North Dakota in 1955, children ages 5 to 9 and pregnant women were given top priority. Parents welcomed the vaccine with open arms. Polio could paralyze and even kill, and young children were the most vulnerable. The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which led the March of Dimes for vaccine research and patient care, provided the vaccine free of charge for first- and second-graders. Salk’s vaccine came in a series of three shots. By the end of 1955, 59 percent of those children in North Dakota were vaccinated. None contracted polio.

Too much or too little water are extremes North Dakota knows all too well. Terrible droughts and destructive floods dot the state’s history. On the wet side, there was the historic 1897 Red River flood and the mammoth rains of the 1990s that swelled Devils Lake. On the dry side, nothing tops the Dust Bowl, when temperatures soared into the triple digits, wind blasted away soil, and farmers and ranchers were left in ruins.

North Dakotans took many steps to fight the 1918 flu pandemic. Bismarck had a mask mandate for waitresses and other food handlers. Schools and businesses around the state closed – some for months. There was even a vaccine, though it turned out to be useless.

Perhaps the disease outbreak in North Dakota’s history was the smallpox epidemic that all but destroyed the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara peoples. In June of 1837, infected passengers aboard a steamboat spread the deadly virus up and down the Missouri River.

Heather Steinmann was putting together her father's obituary, and it reminded her that his song "I Love You, North Dakota" had been on the radio in the 80's — but she did not have a copy.