Why is it that those who get on their high horse most often face in the wrong direction? Alfred Corn
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On Sunday we attended an interesting talk at Bismarck State College, another in the series of “Conversations at BSC.” The president of the college, Dr. Larry Skogen, and Clay Jenkinson, a public humanities scholar, have been doing this for a couple of years once a month, and a different topic is featured each time. Sunday’s topic - “Putting Otto von Back in Bismarck: The Iron Chancellor and the Great Plains” kept the audience in their seats for two hours (just because it was interesting). I couldn’t keep all the facts in my head at the time, so I did a little research on my own to get it understood.
The present city of Bismarck was once named Edwinton, and the conversation came around to why the name was changed. The Northern Pacific Railroad had started crawling across the map of America, but in 1873 stalled at Edwinton (Bismarck) because it ran out of money. The upper echelon of the company had made too many expensive purchases. Then a wide-spread depression - the Panic of 1873 - struck the country and financing was not available. So there the tracks ended. The NP management needed a strategy to get moving again and here is what interested me. In order to attract German settlers and create revenue the city’s name changed to Bismarck in order to get Otto von Bismarck, the German Chancellor, interested and to encourage German people to come here. Times did start picking up a bit. The Black Hills gold rush helped bring business. In 1882 the Missouri railroad bridge spanned the river and tracks led to the westward settling. That bridge, by the way, was well-built since the pilings and pillars used today are still original construction.
From 1889 to 1893 the president was Benjamin Harrison, and in order to get him interested in helping the railroad to thrive, the NP management outright gave him a farm of over 900 acres just five miles north of the city, an act of graft and corruption that seemed to have worked.
Now when I drive north on Highway 83 and pass by the nightclub in Hay Creek Township I’ll think of the historical significance of that land.
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As I sit in relative comfort in this home we built ten years ago and benefit from all the labor saving devices in it, I’m always amazed by what people of a hundred years ago went through. I present the following article in the Sheldon Progress to illustrate my point:
P. N. Brown and I. M. Williams of McLeod arrived in Sheldon early Wednesday morning after making an all night trip in order to get here to carry the election returns to Lisbon. Mr. Brown had a rather trying experience in getting here. He started to walk to McLeod, a distance of about two miles and became lost on the prairie. He wandered around through a heavy cold rain for several hours before he finally reached McLeod. He and Mr. Williams then took the Soo train past Anselm and came as far as the crossing, (about two miles west of Sheldon - my note) walking from there into Sheldon and went to Lisbon on the morning train. (Given present day cars and improved roads, it takes less than half an hour to drive from McLeod to Lisbon.)
