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Antarctica, 1890s.
Click for full image It is usually left off of world maps, but in this one Antarctica is the guest of honor. Most flat map projections, even if they do include Antarctica portray it as a wide band of...
View ArticleWWI Poem, 1948
“Just a thought And just to think - A slap of ink, embroiled the world in War! A fleet of ships through “U” boats slink - A Kaiser is no more.” I tried to find a source for this little,...
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Vanish, North Dakota, 1950s
click for full image In the early 1950s the Garrison Dam was well under construction, and the government was working on accommodating several communities that were about to be soaked by the...
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Electric and Steam Shovels, 1905
As technology changes, sometimes we get stuck on old terminology; we “dial” a phone, the first TV channel is “2″, and we flatten things with a “steamroller”. Most steamrollers today, of course, are...
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Dakota Death Trip
Happy New Year, and maybe you haven’t heard, I’ve opened up a new small part of this website a couple months ago. Dakota Death Trip is a compilation of vintage news articles, photos, and other...
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Little Columbus, 1920
View Fullsize Image What might appear to be a Bugsy Malone version of 1492: Conquest of Paradise is actually from the encyclopedic series Public School Methods, a 1920 handbook for teaching...
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The Petroleum Tree, 1957
View Full-Size Image Here we have the Tree of Petroleum, the family structure of what comes from crude oil and ends up in your car, on your body, and in your food. It’s rather creepy to have a whole...
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Black’s Store Costume Party, 1932
Happy Halloween from Black’s Department Store! This wasn’t the store located in the Black Building: the photo was taken in 1932, so this ragtag bunch of costumed employees worked for the Store...
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Mails By Electricity, 1890
Oscar was so close with his 1890 invention of “electric mail” process, but yet so far: To Send Mails by Electricity. Oscar Kleinsteinber, superintendent of the police alarm and telephone system of...
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Meet Katy High, 1963
Do you know Katy High? Here she is, in 1963, with a big sash around her shoulders so she doesn’t forget her name. Sorry for the large image; that’s the nature of Miss Katy High: Katy High is not...
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The Cunningham Sanitarium, 1920s
What is it — an oil tank? A spacecraft? A nuclear reactor? In 1928, this was the cutting-edge in medical technology: The Cunningham Sanitarium. Dr. Orval J Cunningham was experimenting with the use of...
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The Rusk Auto-House, 1915
One of the things my Wifey likes about me is that I geek out over weird things. A few summers ago, while we were cruising rummage sales around Fargo, I started to geek out over a small building in an...
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Horsepower, 1884
As I was doing my usual reading of old newspapers I ran across this advertisement. Ads for agricultural implements aren’t unusual, but this one in a May 1884 issue of the Bismarck Tribune caught my...
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Gandhi SHRDLU
I found this compelling article in the 18 June 1931 issue of The Beach (N.D.) Advance: It reads: SHEDDING NON-ESSENTIALS All India is gossiping over Mahatma Gandhi’s unprecedented action in laying...
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The Steamboat Montana
My Dakota Datebook today tells the tale of the Wreck of the Montana. In June, 1879, a tornado hit the boat landing at Bismarck, wreaking havoc on the steamboats moored there. Three were tied up;...
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Amenia, ND, 1880s.
If you head north on Highway 18 from Casselton, on your way to Arthur and Hunter, you’ll pass by the little town of Amenia. You might not even notice it: the highway takes a bend to the east, and a...
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Secession And The US
That cool cat up there is “Wild Bill” Langer, voting in the 1940 election that would send Mr. Langer to Washington. Nothing was ever easy for William Langer: when he got to Washington, Congress...
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Esperanto in the US, 1910
The 6th World Congress of Esperanto, held in Washington D.C. in August 1910, had reached its peak with an address by the language’s creator, Ludwig Zamenhof, on August 15th. Entitled “Lando de...
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Barkers and Beagles, 1930s
When the TV show DuckTales debuted in September 1987, twenty-six years ago this month, it brought with it the infamous Beagle Boys and their matriarch, Ma Beagle. These were the main antagonists of...
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All That Glitters, 1909
One-hundred and five years ago today, a gold miner from California arrived at the doorstep of Herbert Chaffee, the president of the Amenia and Sharon Land Company, in Amenia, ND. This...
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