North Dakota
Historically Speaking:\u00a0North Dakota’s workhorses come to Exeter
The Great Depression started early in some parts of the country. New Hampshire had been suffering from an economic downturn since just after World War I. Things were far worse in North Dakota.
Historian Elwyn Robinson has written, “The 1920s in North Dakota were a time of readjustment. The stimulus of pioneering had vanished. Settlement of the semiarid state by people from humid regions had left a heritage of maladjustment, of institutions unsuited to the nature of the country.”
Unlike New Hampshire, which is small, North Dakota has vast territory. The rush for homesteading in the late 1800s had slowed and years of drought found many leaving the state. “Because they had anticipated a denser population and a greater production of wealth than the state has yet attained, the pioneers created too many farms too many towns, too many schools, churches, and colleges, too many counties and too much government, too much railroad mileage, too many banks and too much debt.” Robinson called this the “Too-Much Mistake.”
To improve the economic strain in the state, many North Dakota farmers joined cooperatives and the North Dakota Farm Bureau organized as part of the larger American Farm Bureau. Concerns with grain prices took precedence, but the question of raising ready cash was also at the forefront. Was there some unused resource that might pull in some quick income? It seems there were: horses.
It turns out, North Dakotans owned more autos than most states. “In 1913, North Dakotans owned only 12,075 automobiles, but by 1920 they owned 92,000, and 57% of the state’s farmers had them.” Robinson cites that by 1930, the percentage of farmers owning cars or tractors had gone up to 87% – “one for every 3.7 persons.” The national average was one for every 5.3 persons. So, if the state no longer needed horses for transportation or labor, they could be sold in other parts of the country.
Western horses had an excellent reputation back east. These weren’t wild mustangs, they were solid, well-broken-in, reliable workhorses. Local farm bureaus, primarily in New Hampshire and Vermont, began making arrangements to bring some of these well-mannered horses to auction. New England farmers were still happy to use horse labor. The region has abundant hay resources, unlike the arid plains, and is compacted into a smaller area.
The auctions began in 1922. Two years later, one of the sales came to Exeter.
“Thirty heads of horses direct from Dakota farmers will be sold at auction under a positive guarantee. The horses are accustomed to all classes of farm work and are mostly Percheron and Belgian breeding from 5 to 9 years old and weigh from 1200 to 1700 pounds,” ran an advertisement in early April of 1924 in the Exeter News-Letter. “Practically every horse sold by us in the past two years has given splendid satisfaction. Ask your County Farm Bureau about our sales.”
Finding the advertising was a tremendous help to the Exeter Historical Society. The organization received a collection of nearly two thousand slides in 2022 associated with the Tufts family of Exeter. The patriarch of the family, James Arthur Tufts, Sr., was a long-time teacher at Phillips Exeter Academy. His son, James Arthur Tufts, Jr., went into agriculture and ran the Granite State Nursery on High Street. Among the images were three that looked down on a gathering of people surrounding various horses. Taken from the second story of the farm’s house, the photos were too fuzzy to be featured in the annual Historical Society calendar but clear enough to depict some type of local event. The dates matched those of a cryptic entry in James’ sister, Betty’s diary for the year 1924: “Saturday, Apr. 12, 1924. Gave 5 lessons. Over to Jim’s on a 2 o’clock trolley with Father & Aunt Sue to see the horse auction. 30 horses from N. Dakota. Mother went to sta. to see them come.” Betty was a frequent horseback rider, but these horses would not have suited her. Percheron and Belgians are enormous working breeds – the kind you might see at a horse-pulling competition at the fair.
The auctioneer arrived from North Dakota with the horses. His name was Frank Hyland, who was not only the auctioneer (indeed he was so skillful at the art that he often taught it to aspiring students) but was also serving as sitting Lieutenant Governor for the state of North Dakota. The Exeter News-Letter described him as “efficient” after “he sold the entire 28 head in quick time at prices ranging from $100 to $300.”
The sale fulfilled two purposes: high-quality western horses came to New England while bringing in much-needed cash to the strapped counties of North Dakota. Buyers were assured that “a committee appointed by the Rockingham County Farm Bureau will inspect and hitch all the horses prior to the sale and will report on each horse at the sale.” How well the horses served after the sale is not recorded, however at least one registered its discontent: “An unfortunate incident was the injury to Mr. Lloyd Snell, of Brentwood, who was kicked by a horse he had bought, several ribs being fractured. He was taken to Exeter Hospital.”
Barbara Rimkunas is the curator of the Exeter Historical Society. Support the Exeter Historical Society by becoming a member! Join online at: www.exeterhistory.org.
BISMARCK, N.D. (KFYR) – North Dakota leaders unveiled an initiative aimed at getting more oil out of the Bakken, using enhanced oil recovery and CO₂.
Senator John Hoeven said the effort is getting a boost from $36 million from the Department of Energy for “Crack the Code 2.0,” a $157 million initiative with state and industry funding.
Hoeven said the goal is to use CO₂ for enhanced oil recovery, calling it “an important, usable, valuable commodity” and saying, “We’re linking our coal plants with our oil and gas producing companies to do it.”
Funding will be used to develop technology to make enhanced oil recovery profitable and viable, and then implement it in North Dakota oil fields in a number of pilot projects.
Hoeven said current recovery rates in the Bakken are limited.
“We’re only producing about 10 to 12% of the oil out of that shale,” he said, “But with EOR, advanced oil recovery techniques, we can double it. We can take it from 10 to 12% up to 25% or better.”
Hoeven said the effort is also tied to electricity demand, saying North Dakota will “produce more electricity for a company that wants to do AI, that wants to do data centers, needs more and more electricity,” and that “it isn’t just about oil and gas.”
North Dakota Petroleum Council President Ron Ness said the pilot projects are expected to start soon.
“We hope to see these pilots putting their technologies into the ground sometime late this year, first quarter of next year,” said Ness.
“So I would expect by this time next year, we’re going to maybe potentially begin to see what are some of the results early on,” Ness added. “And again, this is going to take multiple, multiple swings at this thing. It’s not going to just happen. If it was easy, we’d be doing it. Nobody’s done it anywhere in the world. This is where we’re going to crack the code.”
Copyright 2026 KFYR. All rights reserved.
Three years after a deal with Fairview was called off, South Dakota-based Sanford Health is getting into the Twin Cities market with a new merger.
On Friday, the health system announced that it will combine with North Memorial Health.
Fairview, Sanford call off planned merger
Under the merger, Sanford says the organization will invest $600 million to strengthen the Robbinsdale hospital and double the Maple Grove hospital’s size.
Sanford is the largest rural nonprofit health system in the country, with 58 hospitals and roughly 56,000 employees across the Dakotas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Wyoming and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. North Memorial operates two hospitals in Robbinsdale and Maple Grove, along with several other clinics, employing more than 6,500 people.
If completed, the health systems plan to keep some local leadership in place, including North Memorial CEO Trevor Sawallish, and two North Memorial board members will serve on the combined system’s board. However, the overall company will be led by Sanford CEO Bill Gassen.
The companies say they expect the merger to close later this year, as long as regulatory processes don’t cause delays.
Sanford’s previous attempt to merge with Fairview was called off in 2023, eight months after initially announcing the planned merger. Many Minnesotans raised concerns about that transaction, including Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, although some of that was due to the University of Minnesota’s partnership with Fairview and the possibility of an out-of-state company running the state’s flagship medical school.
As with most mergers, concerns are still likely to arise about possible cutbacks and the impact on the state’s healthcare quality. However, the deal seems more likely to be completed than Sanford’s past attempts.
Reaction
SEIU Healthcare Minnesota & Iowa, who represents over 1,000 workers at North Memorial, called the news “worrisome.”
“At a time when healthcare costs are skyrocketing for Minnesota families and frontline healthcare workers are getting squeezed by short staffing levels, this latest attempt at consolidation brings many concerns. It is especially concerning because previous merger attempts by Sanford Health to come into Minnesota have failed due to their values and corporate behavior,” the union said.
SEIU also called on Ellison “to use all of his office’s powers within the law to provide oversight into this proposed merger and ensure the interests of Minnesota’s workers and patients are protected.”
Ellison’s office is asking the public to submit information through an online Community Input Form.
“As we have done and are currently doing with other healthcare transactions, we are conducting a thorough review of this potential acquisition to ensure it complies with the law and is in the public interest,” Ellison daid. “Proposed health care consolidation requires careful examination. As long as I am Attorney General, I will use the full range of regulatory tools to protect Minnesotans’ access to quality, affordable healthcare.”
The Minnesota Nurses Association released a statement saying it is “deeply concerned” by the merger announcement, warning it “could have far-reaching consequences for patients, healthcare workers, and the communities they serve.”
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BISMARCK, N.D. (KFYR) – Here’s something North Dakotans can take pride in: North Dakota has the third-highest average IQ in the nation, tying with Vermont at 103.8. That is 3.5 points above the national average.
The state with the highest average is Massachusetts at 104.3 and the state with the lowest average is Mississippi at 94.2.
Ninety-four percent of North Dakotans graduate high school, making it the state with the sixth-highest graduation rate in the nation.
Copyright 2026 KFYR. All rights reserved.
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