Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-10-22
C. L, MARSHALL
Former Editor, Wolf Point Herald

THE NOVEMBER ELECTION
"A the voters of Roosevelt county
will be handed a very small, Sc
parate ballot on which hangs a big is
sue-and a tale. There is a county
seat fight on Of the kind that has put
q kick in the early history of many
of the counties of many of the west
ern states. The little ballots will bear
the names. in alphabetical order.
before each, which may be taken
as sign that a square deal
is demanded by the citizens of
the county. The number of KS placed
before these respective names will de-
termine the permanent county seat.
Roosevelt county was created by
the legislature in March, 1919, and the
birth of the youngster preclpltated a
scrap as to its size and shape that
has not been finished yet. At a con-
ference of the towns within the ter
ritory that is now Roosevelt county,
early in 1918. it was agreed to let
the matter of slicing a new county
off from old Sheridan rest until after
the war. The armistic was signed
the following November, but all but
one of the parties to the agreement
felt that as no peace treaty had been
signed the war was not really over
and certainly not war conditions.
Poplar. however, felt it was the OPP
perfume time % act. Her natural
opponents were growing In strength
and a lapse of two years might prove
fatal to her aspirations.
Poplar Takes Initiative
POPLAR proposed to split a strip off
the southern side of Sheridan county
reaching from Valley county to the
North Dakota line. Bainville and the
''eastend" people wanted a county OF
convenient shape and dimensions
carved out of southeastern Sheridan
county. Wolf Point and the people
of southwestern Sheridan and north
ern Dawson counties felt that their
territory naturally belonged IN a
county together.
POPLAR organized her forces and
laid her wires. The legislative mem
bers from the territory of their pro-
posed county felt bound by the after
the war; agreement and Poplar had
to go to a Valley county member to
get their bill for the creation OF
Roosevelt county introduced. Wolf
Point. to defend her interests, had q
bill for the creation of Stuart county
introduced. Bainville's plans did not
crystalize to the bill stage.
What happened at Helena that WIN
ter. in connection with these bills. is
too deep to be dug up now. Suffice
it to say that Poplar had the right
system and the Roosevelt bill passed
both houses and was signed by Gov
erpor s. V. Stewart. But before the
boundaries of the new county were
fixed a serious breach occurred between
Froid and Poplar. The Poplar
county makers proposed to narrow
the eastern end of their county TO the
extent that wuld leave Froid in Sheri-
dan, and plainly said that people OF
the Froid section were u~ndesirables
The Froid people would not stand for
This and demanded to be taken INTO
the new county if it was formed. IL
hannened that Froid had q member in
the lower house of the legislature ana
Poplar did not dare to attempt to force
the proposed exclusion.
County Seat at Mondak
The bill that created Roosevelt
county placed in office the first board
of county commissioners, two of the
three being, of course, OF Poplar $
choosing. Mondah. in the extreme
southeastern corner Of the county, was
selected as temporary county seat, with
the understanding that it was to re
main such, in the spirit of fair play to
all other towns. until a permanent
count seat was chosen by the voters,
The first set of county officers also
were named in the bill.
Some buildings were rented, some
were purchased, and remodeled TO take
care of the various offices. Fixtures
and supplies were purchased through
a Poplar firm. A Poplar printing n
Germ received the contract for the coun-
ty printing and its paper became the
official paper. A Poplar man was
awarded the contract to transcribe the
county records. A county jail was
built and a vault to protect the records.
Altogether quite an amount of the
Young c%ounty's slender funds was re-
quired to get ready to function as q
county, and the year 1919 was well
along before the work was completed.
At the general election i'll 1920 the
county voted on the question of a per-
manent county seat. The law provides
that nothing less than a majority of all
votes cast on the issue could make a
candidate permanent county seat, and
in the event of no town receiving more
than 80 per cent of the votes another