Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1902-07-03
TALES OF NORTH DAKOTA.
Incidents I'm the Life of the Late Col.
DOMAIN Recalled.

DOMAIN Recalled.
A writer contributes the following
interesting "reminiscences to the Wash
i ington Post:
! I've heard of people borrowing al
most everything on earth, but the tale
a Dakota woman tells me quite puts
all I've heard before in the shade. She
says she was staying with an old
friend on one of the bonanza farms in
the Northwest, and there happened to
| be visiting in the same house some
what elderly woman whose teeth troub-
| led her so much that when dentist
from Fargo came that way for a few
days, she had him pull every one of
them out. She was to go to Fargo in
little while and be fitted with COM
plete set of tailor made teeth.
| When the time came, and she began
TO turn over in her mind the entertain
ments in store for her in Fargo, and to
| think of the peor,e she would be meet
ing before her ne@' teeth were done,
her heart was troubled within her. SO,
according to the Dakota woman, who
IS the most truthful, mortal I ever met,
she took the hosi:a,s of the bonanza
farmhouse into her confidence, and, as
they were about of a size. asked her
! to loan her Iler false teeth for the Far
go trip She said she would send them
back just the minute her own teeth
were sent home, and she wouldn't
mind it if they were not an exact tit.
Speaking of Fargo reminds me that
that is the only town in all these
United States, so far as I can find out,
whose Inhabitants admit that the sum-
mers there are too hot for comfort.
Chicago people boom their town as
summer resort, and New Orleans folk
positively feel sorry for Northerners
who can't spend their summers down
there. I've even had people tell me
that Phoenix, Ariz., is a perfectly ideal
| hot-Weather retreat; but If you go TO
Fargo you'll find somebody on every
block who will tell you that one can't
tive in Fargo during the summer.
Oyen-like "Chinook winds" blow from
the far Pacific and fairly melt the met
al trimmings off the thermometers
The only escape is to go to some of the
Minnesota lakes. They even admit
that mosquitoes are bad in Dakota
and altogether the frankness of the
Fargo people makes the town unique
Nobody who ever knew the Dakotas
In the boom times. when the two OF
them were one, and that one a terrific
nv. can bark back to the old days With
out recalling Col. P. DOMAIN. whose
death at Portland. Ore, is announced.
Col. Donan was almost as we'll known
here in Washington as he was in Da-
kota, for he had friends in every city
in the country. 1t was his way to sign
himself "P. Donan," and he was COM
monty spoken of as 'Pat" Donan, but
his name was really Peter.
It was he who doomed Dakota. for
promoter he was by nature. He used
to talk Of the Red River valley as "the
sun-kissed banana belt of the Great
Northwest" Plain English was
thing to him unknown: His language
was always pyrotechnic and iridescent.
When the language failed to supply
him with word sufficiently dazzling
to suit his purpose, he coined one. Sol
der of fortune he was, and as upright
and honorable a gentleman as ever
lived. He brought back from Mexico
the most magnificent opal the country
mas ever produced, and he had legeno
concerning the origin of the opal which
{ think was original with him.
He used to say that when Solomon
was given dominion over fays and
genii, one spirit only rebelled. Solo
mon had ordered him to leave the
world of human beings, and to retire
INTO the realms of sprites and spirits,
but for the love of a woman Of earth'
the genii disobeyed. To punish him for
loving where love was forbidden, Sol
cmon shut him up forever in a milk
white stone which, the colonel used to
say, gazing at the opal he always car
ried. has ever since flashed with the
green of an eternal agony and the
crimson of an undying passion.
Col. Donan had a never-failing store
of anecdotes and "reminiscences and an
inexaustible fancy, but the thing on
which he prided himself most was
something he did not often speak OF,
even to his friends. 1t was the fact
that no young lady intrusted to his
care was ever accompanied by chap
erone. The most strict mothers in New
York. in Washington. in st. Louis. in
every other city of the country. al
lowed their daughters to go wherever
Col. DOMAIN chose to take them-and he
took twenty of them on a grand tour
of the Northwest in special train
once upon time-without thinking OF
a chaperonage. He was a gentleman
of the old and, most punctilious school,
and with his death one of the most pic
turesoue and lovable figures the North
west ever knew vanished.
They tell to this day in North Dako-
ia of the trick the late Col. DOMAIN
helped the people of one Dakota town
to play on neighboring. village. The
two towns were rivals for the county
seat, and feeling between them was
extremely bitter. They were ABOUT
equally distant from the end OF the
railroad, and each of them hoped to be
favored by the railway authorities
when the line should be built further.
Both towns determined to celebrate a
certain Fourth Of July in the early
sos, after fashion the Territory had
never before seen. Next to Col. Donan
himself. Col. Plummer of Fargo was
accounted the most brilliant orator III
the Territory. Both towns-I have for
gotten their names-wanted him as
chief figure in the celebration, but Town
No. got it's invitation in first, and Sc
cured the orators acceptance. The
other town called on Col. Donan whose