The Dickinson press., 1916-05-27
FORMER DICKINSON RESIDENT
AT ONE TIME N. P. DIVISION
SUPERINTENDENT, GIVES
EARLY. HISTORY.
Tells About Hard Winter of 1867
and Early Banking at Dickinson
and Mandan When Money
West of River was Scarce.

country, LHe SCdC1On OF fledSanC
Valley existed where the City of
Dickinson now stands, with your
modern railway station, electric light
and power plant, flour mills, three
National and one State Bank; your
spacious Masonic Temple, and further
on the home: Of the Elks, the various
churches and public school buildings,
not forgetting your good hotels,
stores, and comfortable homes, the
movies and other and various ad-
juncts that go to make prosperous
western city of five thousand people.
So different from the town of nine
hundred people when I was division
superintendent of the railroad here
in 1890, and the less number in 1885,
and the station of Pleasant Valley ex-
listing in 1881.
Even in the early nineties the way
farer sympathized with US because
we had to live in such a country,
and in those days when I drove
through the country with its winding
rivers and creeks, fed by refreshing
and ever flowing springs, over the
hills. and far aw:y, through draws
and basins and many pleasant val
leys where cattle grazed on thous-
and hills and elsewhere, wondered
why it was neglected, why: it was not
occupied by more people.
Homesteaders had come in the
early eighties and many abandoned
claims were in evidence.
Cattle by thousands walked in from
Texas, accompanied by the gentle
hammered and often uproarious cow
boys, occupying the free range. Then
there was the tragic interruption to
the cattle industry in 1867, when
nearly all the range stock perished,
hundreds Of cattle in sheltered
country lived through the period of
deep snow and starvation, until the
chinook winds of late February un-
covered the grass, and then most of
those that were able filled up on
grass and laid down and died. Only
a few were left. Thousands of cat
tie disappeared, and the bleached
bones of cattle and buffaloes were
shipped by the carload several years
afterward from different stations
along the railroad.
The revival of the range industry
was slow, but it was fairly under way
again in the early nineties. If 1
remember rightly, live stock ship
ments from Dickinson about 1893
reached 1000, cars in one year:
People lived here for years in the
pastoral days as firmly fixed as a
Mohammedan in faith and belief that
the land was only good for grazing:
The railroad owned one-haf the land
for sixty miles each side of the main
line. Except for the slow process of
locating ranches with neighbors
miles and miles apart, the country
did not respond to development.
Even if grain crops were harvested,
the products could not find a profit
able market.
Later the sight Of prairie schoon-
er with a settlers family aboard was
a sorry sight for the free range men.
But the land movement started in
the late nineties when the Northern
Pacific commenced selling their lands
in township lots, starting around
ninety cents and dollar per acre.
Thousands of acres were sold at $1.25
to S1.4O and 1925 and up per acre
on ten year contracts, requiring ten
annual payments, with six per cent
interest on deferred payments.
Settlement started and as one old
ranchman remarked to me, "Lord, it
they would only come a few at a
time, but they come in hordes:
It was Mr.. Hannaford, believe,
who remarked several years ago that
If the Northern Pacific had given
away their lands to actual settlers,
the railroad would have required a
double track twenty years ago.
Cowboys developed into bankers
and leading citizens, the erstwhile
railroad men moved right along with
the cowboys, and the ordinary citi-
zens profted by their example: They
all'' could not help it because God had
nut the good stuff into them, the
kind real men are made Of. And
they lived happily, though with less
enjoyment, ever afterwards.
/ have often thought, when sitting
in at the Banker-F Farmer conventions,
when SO much language has been
used about everything but the vital
facts, as though something new had
heen discovered, talks about cooper
alton and things like that, what
stories the ranchmen from Texas,
Missouri, North Dakota and Montana
could tell about the real things in
co-operation, and the splendid judg-
ment and fortitude Of the middle men
and bankers who financed the re-
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