Magic of State Highway 36

By JACK DURA

Aug. 28 — For adventure in North Dakota, sometimes you have to look a little harder. State Highway 36 is a good place to start.

The east-west roadway runs for about ninety miles between Wilton and Pingree in central North Dakota. There’s plenty to see and do along the roadway, especially since Robinson, North Dakota, once claimed the geographical center of the continent. Mayor Bill Bender registered the federal trademark after the city of Rugby let its claim lapse. The new geographical center of the continent was supposedly in Hanson’s Bar on Main Street.

(Editor’s note: Robinson claimed it was the geographical center of North America several years ago. Sometime after that, the Geographic Center trademark was given back to Rugby.)

Head east and south from Robinson and you’ll find another continental superlative. Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge is a Globally Important Bird Area that President Theodore Roosevelt established on this date in 1908. Tens of thousands of pelicans flock to breed and nest at this alkaline lake north of Medina.

Bookending Highway Thirty-Six are classic examples of history and scenery. Wilton is home to one of the state’s remaining Ukrainian orthodox churches. East of Pingree is Arrowwood National Wildlife Refuge. Wildlife and plant life abound – including waterfowl, lady’s slipper orchids and endless grass and sky.

You can also find history along the highway in the handful of shuttered one-room schoolhouses. And it’s worth a stop in Lake Williams to get a smile from the cleverly vandalized “Pettibone Brain Co.” Get your kicks on Highway 36

Rural Post Offices

By JACK DURA

Aug. 29 — The early days of North Dakota saw a boom as the railroads and settlements both grew. Many towns we know today grew from the tiny communities plopped down by the railroad tracks.

Like Thorne, North Dakota, the rival of Dunseith, south of the Turtle Mountains. The town’s post office was established today in 1905, along with a string of other rural post offices in other towns in the state. Thorne grew along the Great Northern Railway, named after either a railroad man or as tribute to area’s prairie roses. Thorne today is much smaller, just a tiny farming community with its railroad pulled up long ago.

Other post offices popping up on this day in 1905 included Lein, which really wasn’t more than a farm post office for Lein Township in Burleigh County. Brothers Bernt and John Lein were postmasters after each other before the outpost closed in 1914. Mail then went to Driscoll.

Way up in Divide County, south of Noonan, another farm post office opened at Garfield the same day as Thorne and Lein. Postmaster Hattie Zimmerman oversaw mail duties for the post office on the extreme northwest edge of North Dakota. It closed after three years, mail sent to nearby Kermit, which later closed in 1943 with mail to Noonan. Noonan still operates its post office, but its population has been cut in half since 1990.

Other remnants of startup towns remain in North Dakota. The grain elevator of Rival, North Dakota, still stands. Rival was supposed to be the rival of nearby Lignite, North Dakota, but it never grew. Rival lay along the Soo Line and Lignite on the Great Northern. A post office also existed in Rival, but it ended in 1909 after two years — one of many that came and went in establishing communities in North Dakota.

Goodrich, Clark and Dudley

By JACK DURA

Aug. 30 — Quite some distance from North Dakota’s two least-populated counties of Slope and Billings is Sheridan County, the state’s third-least populous county. Sheridan is at the very center of the state, home to the centermost city of McClusky, which is also the county seat. In the east is Goodrich, born along the railroad, but with a story unlike other North Dakota towns.

It starts with Dudley, North Dakota, being established in 1900, then Clark, North Dakota, in 1901. Dudley was east of Clark and slightly larger, with seven blocks to Clark’s five. The rival towns were named after business partners and located in the same section of Goodrich Township. The towns merged in 1901 to form Goodrich, named for a civil engineer with the Northern Pacific Railroad, which served the town.

On this date in 1902, the post office at Goodrich was established, nine days after an error. The postmaster had established the post office as Blaine, but the order was quickly rescinded and switched to Goodrich.

Goodrich’s population stayed steady for about fifty years, with about 400 to 475 residents. But by 2010, barely 100 residents remained. The decline hit Main Street, and the business block was demolished in 2011.

North Dakota’s Promoter

By CATHY LANGEMO

Aug. 31 — Joseph M. Devine, once North Dakota’s governor and immigration commissioner, died on this date in 1938. He was born in Wheeling, West Virginia, on March 15, 1861, the son of Hugh Calhoun and Jane (McMurry) Devine.

As a 12-year-old, Devine began gaining business experience delivering the Wheeling Daily Register and helping his father at the landscape and florist business.

After being educated in the schools of Wheeling, Devine graduated from the University of West Virginia and came to Dakota Territory in 1884. He filed on land in what is now LaMoure County, but farmed for only a short time.

Devine promoted a strong education system for North Dakota and was one of its earliest educators. In 1886, he was elected LaMoure County Superintendent of Schools, serving for 10 years.

He became president of the North Dakota State Education Association in 1889, and his work on behalf of education in North Dakota was “potent and far reaching. Much of the state’s general system of education is due to his untiring efforts . . .,” according to his biography in the Compendium of History and Biography.

Devine also served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in St. Louis in 1896 and as one of the vice presidents of the convention. From 1905-1911, he was chairman of the Progressive-Republican Party in North Dakota.

Devine was elected lieutenant governor of North Dakota in 1896 and 1898, then serving as governor from April 1898 to Jan. 1, 1899, after Governor Briggs’ death. A strong supporter of the Republican Party, at age 22 he traveled the state for the presidential campaign.

In 1897, Devine became vice president of the National Sound Money League, a position through which he wrote several articles on finance that were carried extensively in Eastern papers.

In 1900, Devine was chosen as state superintendent of schools and later as chairman of the State Normal School Board of Trustees and executive head of the State Training School in Mandan. In 1922, Devine became Commissioner of Immigration and was reappointed to that office by two more governors.

Devine untiringly promoted his adopted state. In addressing the North Dakota Annual Banquet in Washington, D.C., in February 1928, he said, “We have everything that a prospective home settler seeks or can desire . . . North Dakota leads all states in the production of No. 1 Hard Wheat, flax, barley, winter rye and fourth in oats . . . North Dakota’s citizenry is as sound as her No. 1 Hard Wheat and as clean as the air they breathe . . . .”

In 1891, Devine married Ida F. Holloway at Lake Crystal, Minnesota. She died, leaving a young daughter. In 1900, Devine married Mary Bernadine Hanscom, and they had three children.

Devine died of a heart attack on this date in 1938 and is buried in the Mandan Union Cemetery.

Broadway Wreck

By JAYME L. JOB

Sept. 1 — Two Northern Pacific railcars derailed from their tracks in downtown Fargo on this day in 1903. The two cars, one a Wisconsin Central Furniture Car and the other a Pennsylvania Coal Company car, were reduced to wood kindling and scrap metal. The Wisconsin car collided with the Broadway crossing tower and toppled the tower over in seconds, also snapping heavy cables attached to a nearby telegraph pole.

Conrad Otterstetter, the tower watchman, was forced to escape from the falling tower by climbing through a trap door in the floor and jumping to safety. A friend of his who had brought his evening meal jumped right out of the tower’s window upon sight of the enormous railcar hurdling toward them.

A falling brake beam caused the derailment. The beam is believed to have fallen from a broken attachment, knocking the cars from the rail.

“Dakota Datebook” is a radio series from Prairie Public in partnership with the State Historical Society of North Dakota and with funding from Humanities North Dakota.