As is usually the case the past week’s news is mind-numbing and items of importance are shunted off to the side to make room for the next new and exciting thing. The oil leak in the Gulf, Nashville inundated, the nomination of a new Supreme Court judge, the sharp drop in the stock market, etc. all grab at our attention during the daily news cycles. It gets so we have to pick and choose if we want to keep up. Mix in Tiger Woods, global warming, health care, volcanic ash and the brew thickens.
News in my hometown paper was much simpler in May of 1885. The following are a few gleaned from the records of the Heritage Center: Thousands of dozen of eggs are being shipped from Sheldon to the Fargo market . . . P. P. Goodman has planted twenty-five acres of corn down on his Sheyenne River farm . . . Business has been lively during the past week. The business side of front street having been crowded with teams from early morn until dewy eve . . . City Marshal Sanborn has given some of the hilariously inclined farmer citizens a little whatcome advice lately in consequence of which they crawled into their wagons and made tracks for home . . . Several prairie schooners passed through town yesterday bound for the west.
Jumping ahead twenty-five years we find these tidbits: Hans Bjugstad, while strolling around through the hills last Saturday ran on to a den of young coyotes. He dug out seven of the little animals . . . For centuries scientists have been racking their brains in an effort to discover the elixir of life, a recipe for perpetual youth. But it remains for man unknown to the world of science to find the true preventative for old age, the fountain of perpetual youth. That man is Chauncy Durgin. He attributes his extremely youthful appearance at the age of ninety-three to his habit of eating pie every morning for breakfast and conveying it to his mouth with a knife. Since he gave his discovery to the world several of our young men upon whom Father Time has laid his hand, have been following his example. As a result the pie market has been rapidly rising in price . . . ad: Burke’s Auto Livery takes you anywhere. Expert and sober chauffeurs only employed. Phone 63, Sheldon . . . Tuesday morning Mail Carrier Good’s “bronco” went out on a strike, decided that he wouldn’t carry Uncle Sam’s mail any longer and proceeded to kick the mail cart into kindling wood. He succeeded admirably and Mr. Good had to return to town and make the trip by bicycle route.
In the hallway of the Heritage Center, an exhibit of the front page of various state newspapers caught my eye. The Fargo Daily Courier of January 17, 1917 had this headline in large letters: Ballot Is Given to North Dakota Women. Hanging beside it was this front page from the December 28, 1930 issue of the Bismarck Tribune: Fire Destroys State Capitol. I don‘t think the state historians were making any type of statement.
