The weekly times-record. (Valley City, N.D.) 1912-1922, 1922-09-14

ing grounds being taken from them.
Their friendliness changed and the
Indian massacres followed. General
Sibley led the first great expedition
against them in 1898 and followed
the marauding redskins from the mas
sacres of Minnesota to the Missouri
River.
There are many pioneers in Mandan
and Bismarck today who came into
the northern valley and on the plains
in the westward flow of home-seekers
after the Civil War. They came up
the river by steamboat before the
steel rails of the Northern Pacific
were pushed westward to the Missouri
River by James J. Hill. They tell
stories Of the days when the two
cities were but trading posts, when
saloons, dance halls and gambling
dens abounded and their word-pic-
lures carries conviction which leads
one to believe that the lurid motion
pictures of the "Wild West" are not
exaggerated.
Ahead of the bulk of the white set
tiers, came the American flag and the
Old Fort Abraham Lincoln was es-
tablished on the banks of the Mis-
souri,. 1t was from this fort, that
General George Custer rode out in
1876 with his band of soldiers to the
fateful battle of the Little Big Horn
when his command was massacred.
The first word of this battle which
filled the country with horror was
sent out from Bismarck when Cap
tain Grant Marsh raced the steamer,
'The Far West" down the Missouri
with the wounded.
The triumph of the cunning Sitting
Bull and Chief Gaul was the begin
ming of the end of Indian dangers on
the great plains. The conspirators,
in the uprising, were pursued and
caught and the band was broken up.
The following winter, in 1874-1875,
there came word that gold had been
discovered in the Black Hills of South
Dakota. Thousands of adventurers
came into the country and in search
of sudden wealth. Gold failed them
but many manned to earn their liv-
ing on ranches or in farming the fer
tile acres.
The Northern Pacific had been
pushed west to the river, and then
track was laid beyond, For few
years trains crossed the river in the
winter on rails laid on ice, and in
summer on ferries. 1t was 40 years
ago when the first big bridge across
the Missouri, whose shifting sands
have proved a hard problem for en-
gineers to solve, was built, the Golden
Spike driven and the east and west
coasts joined by a northern railroad.
AS population has increased and
the automobile has found a place of
utility in crossing America, people
began to chafe at having to cross the
Missouri at Mandan and Bismarck on
ferry, inconvenient and uncertain.
Demand for construction of a free
vehcular bridge followed. The bridge
is now complete, built at a cost of
about $2,O0O;O0O with approaches.
Because it was on a trans-continental
highway, the United States Bureau of
Public Roads, made what is saidd to be
its first big appropriation of federal
aid for bridge building on trans-con-
tinental highways. The difficulties Of
bridging the Missouri lay chiefly in
the quick sands through which piers
must be driven. The new bridge, the
only bridge across the Missouri be-
tween Great Falls, Mont, and Sioux
City, Ia, is 10 feet in height from
the bottom Of it's piers to the top of
its superstructure. 1t is 50 feet above
water, high enough for the largest
steamboats, to pass under it. It is
2,443 feet in length, more than half
a mile, and has a sidewalk for pedes-
trians, "a foot asphalt roadway for
vehicles and is built of sufficient
strength to accommodate street car
line.
The building of the bridge marks
the last conquest Of the natural bar
rier of the Missouri River, will join
together a great section of western
Northern Dakota heretofore segregat-
ed, and is an important link in the
trans-continental highway of which it
is part. g..