More Tales From The Old Papers (circa 1910)
Book research yielded fascinating and terrifying glimpses into pioneer life
In a previous post I shared snippets from my research of articles from the Epping Bulletin, the local paper near our family farm. The paper was only published for a few years early in the 20th century, fortunately for me, during the time of my family’s homesteading and the birth of my father.
Now I want to range a bit further from family history, into area lore. Reader beware: this was the wild west. If you read on, you’ll hear about the capture of a wild man, farmer suicides and other violent deaths, the attempt at wholesale eradication of a prairie animal, and other hair-raising tales. These stories have not been edited for political correctness. (Also, unfortunately, due to an error in transferring files, the original file names with dates did not survive, but all of these stories happened between 1908 and 1913.) Finally, those reading this on their phones while dining are advised to click away.
POLICE BEAT
Let’s start out mild, with a story about the first speeding ticket given out (well, attempted) in my hometown of Williston, North Dakota:
The first speeding ticket in Williston didn’t result in a fine, rather a dodge by some crafty Minnesotans and an escape across the state line. The “Killdall-Fish company automobile party” was en route from Minneapolis to Spokane and allegedly sped through Williston, causing a traffic stop by the Chief of Police Davidson (no first name given), who charged the chauffeur, Philip Ekberg, with the crimes of exceeding the speed limit and endangering life and public health.
However, the chief was unable to say how fast the car was moving and the judge dismissed the case.
Undaunted, the chief secured another warrant, but a banker also named Davidson signed the necessary bonds for the travelers, “and the party made ready to start west at once.”
The second warrant didn’t have the state’s attorney’s OK, so the chief then issued a third warrant, but couldn’t find the chauffeur. The other three travelers had exited town in the car, but without the chauffeur. “He was waiting quietly in a hotel room” and then picked up by another auto which idled up to the hotel’s side door. The chauffeur soon overtook his party.
The indignant police chief took chase, heading by train to the next town, Buford, on the border of Montana. But just before Buford, the car’s owner, Killdall, exchanged his Panama hat with the chauffeur’s leather cap, exited the car and began walking through town. “The chief’s posse saw the wayfarer and allowed [the chauffeur] and the machine to fly through Buford without interruption.”
When the chief attempted to arrest the pedestrian, he saw it was Killdall and was livid. But the man “walked across the [state] line and tumbled into his automobile, and Williston’s chief of police came home empty handed.”
Tough Life
Work on the homestead and the farm was difficult, dangerous and sometimes depressing.
One man was injured by leaning his head on his loaded shotgun (lost his jaw and was otherwise disfigured), while another lost an eye from molten steel flying into it at a blacksmith shop. A man was killed by a 350-pound lump of ice, which slid back on him as he attempted to load it onto a wagon from a frozen river. Another succumbed to his injuries after jumping from a hay rack onto the handle of a pitchfork, which flew up and struck him in his intestines.
Suicide has always been a whispered fact of hardscrabble farm life, but back then it was reported in detail. One farmer was so despondent he attempted to kill his wife and five children with a hatchet, but in the end just killed himself. “It is presumed that crop failure and depressed financial circumstances had much to do in creating the motive that prompted the deed,” the paper noted. Another “became suddenly insane yesterday and attempted to kill himself. He took a hammer and attempted to beat out his brains. His scalp was torn completely off and the skull was fractured. He is now in a precarious condition.”
A leading Williston attorney, formerly of Minneapolis, alleged in divorce papers that his wife “horsewhipped him unmercifully in the street” and also “thrust a revolver under his nose and threatened to shoot him if he did not behave.”
One common crime of the era was “blind pigging.” No, it wasn’t a crime against an animal, but rather it was the practice of running a type of speakeasy in a dry territory (someplace where selling alcohol was illegal) or selling it without a license. The paper reported on the arrest of a man who had a liquor sales license but was also running a blind pig on the side. Another pigger was jailed for bribing the Minot chief of police for “protection.” No word on whether the chief was also indicted.
But if he was, he wouldn’t like it in the jail, according to an article titled “Bread and water their diet: no beefsteak will be served in Minot jail.” The article reported that “the city authorities have noticed that every winter some toughs and hoboes plan to get arrested in Minot so that they will get a nice warm place to stay in, and plenty of good stuff to eat.” They’ll get bread and water, and “when their sentences are up, they will not bother the Minot authorities.”
Wild Man
Two men were out for a Sunday rabbit hunt and heard a panther-like scream from the bushes. “They galloped their horses around on the other side of this thicket and to their astonishment were met, face to face, with a man of gigantic size and strength, with long disheveled hair that hung in a bushy mass from his shoulders.”
This was the wild man! For three years rumors had been swirling of people “spying a personage of great stature, muscular, fleet of limb and with every appearance of ferocity, and most generally observing this creature in human form.”
The description continued: “All he had about his person to conceal his nudeness was a sheepskin laced and tied with binding twine about his loins; his body entirely covered with hair.”
One of the hunters went back to town for a lasso while the other kept watch at a safe distance. The rider returned and “being an expert lassoist, with the first coil of the rope caught him around the neck and under the right arm, securing the end of the lasso to the pommel of his saddle and with the speed of the wind he ran his horse around a nearby tree and drew his captive close against it with a few coils of rope around the body of his victim, so he was perfectly helpless.” The other man ran up and tied his hands and feet, and then they loaded him into a wagon and took him to Velva “and placed him in the basement of the McKnight & Lind drug store, where he is now confined and where he is observed by many people each day.”
The scene was set:
“Many foods have been offered him but he fails to partake of any. A half pail of water was set within his reach, and without stopping people, who looked through the window from the outside, declare that he drained the entire contents and, after having done so, with super-human strength, he threw the empty pail against the stone wall of his prison and broke it into a hundred pieces.
“From his ferocious appearance there is no doubt that should he get loose those nearby would doubtless suffer from his fiendish and brutal attacks. From whence this strange person came or the length of time he has been in this wild condition perhaps will never be known.
“One of the noticeable features of this man’s wild and brutal condition is that two of his front teeth are about three-fourths of an inch longer than the fest and having the form of tusks, thereby showing beyond any question his wild and untamable condition.”
The captors didn’t know what to do next with their captive, but feared liability if they released him and he went on a rampage. I could find no further news items about the wild man.
GOPHER
Friday June 19, 1908 was billed as “a day of feat, feast and festivity.” Yes, friends, the occasion was Gopher Day.
Each year beginning in 1906 the town would host a day-long event whose guest of honor was the lowly “gopher.” Actually the Richardson’s ground squirrel, also known as a flickertail, the gopher was a plentiful rodent that lived in ground burrows on the prairie. It was a dubious honor to be the namesake of this festival, because only one part of the animal was invited: the tail. At the center of the festivities was a contest in which the person (read: kid) who brought in the most gopher tails would win a prize. Gophers dug large holes in the prairie for their burrows, and the holes were vexing to the farmer, whose horse or two-footed worker could break a leg tripping in an unseen chasm. The festival attempted to turn the problem into a celebration and rid the landscape of the pesky diggers.
Along with the counting of furry appendages, Gopher Day included foot races by men, women and children, music, ball games, horse racing, bronco busting and “numerous other acrobatic feats of interest,” promised a notice in the Bulletin. And of course, “a bowery dance at night.”
This was still a civic event when I was a kid on the farm, although I never participated. Here are reports from three area papers on the 1908 event.
Epping Bulletin:
“The Gopher Day celebration held in Epping on Friday of last week was a decided success. The crowd was large handsome and enthusiastic. Politicians were numerous and active. The excellent music rendered by the Spring Brook Band was one of the most highly entertaining features of the day. Appropriate addresses were delivered by [6 men]. The ball game Ray vs Tagus was of high athletic order, strenuously played, and which resulted in a victory for the Tagus tribe. About 5000 gopher exhibits were presented, the high prize being awarded to Geo. Sibell. The dance at night was liberally patronized.”
Spring Brook News:
“Spring Brook was well represented at the Gopher celebration at Epping last Friday, and everyone came home satisfied. It is safe to say that all Epping will have to do in the future is to say ‘Gopher Day’ and we’ll be there.”
Williston Herald:
“Last Friday was Gopher Day at Epping and there was a large crowd that attended the celebration. There was among others who were interested in the gopher elimination those who are or rather were candidates for office before the primaries. The program consisted of speeches by the people of that city and by some who had been invited to take part on the program and there was also some who took occasion to be there for the express purpose of winning. The winning of the first prize for killing of gophers brought in something over 2000 gopher tails and the second was close there with the number. The day meant a good deal toward the gopher elimination and if such days were inaugurated all over the county we would soon be free from the pest. The day proved a very pleasant one and the crowd enjoyed the occasion. The business spirit of the people of Epping is certainly to be commended in their move to put the little four-footed rodents out of business.”
And finally, a later Bulletin article about the unfortunate prairie animal. This was a report from another town and county in the southeast part of the state that put the Williston Herald’s suggestion to rest:
Headline: Gophers Are Numerous
Subhead: Over 135,000 killed since April 1, and their massacre makes no impression.
“Over 135,000 gopher tails have been brought to the county auditor at Jamestown and to the different receiving stations over the county since the first day of April 1908, and the county has expended $3,000 in an endeavor to rid the country of the pests.
“Notwithstanding the aggressive warfare that has been waged, there are probably ten times as many flickertails still infesting the fields and it is practically impossible to exterminate them. For the post part the warrants issued have gone to small boys who have trapped and shot the gophers and brought ten to twenty at a time to the auditor for the reward. Some of the most enthusiastic trappers have been girls, and one warrant for $4 to a young lady near Cleveland attested that the girls were as proficient. The county will sent apart even a larger sum for Gopher warrants, and every efforts will be made to kill off a greater number of the destructive animals.”
After all that, how about some “humor.”
Man across fence: young man, your corn looks kind o yellow.
Farmer’s boy: yes, that’s the kind we planted.
Man: don’t look as if you would get more than half a crop.
Boy: we don’t expect to. The landlord gets the other half.
[pause]
Man: boy, there isn’t much difference between you and a fool.
Boy: nope…only the fence.
And an early advertorial:
“The well-nourished baby that is fed on Grape-Nuts is never a crying baby.”
And finally, if you’ve suffered this far, here is a short compilation clip from a favorite movie of my youth. Some of you have probably guessed it, Caddyshack. Spoiler alert: Bill Murray is no match for the gopher.