Plentywood herald. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1908-current, 1936-08-27


ty and elsewhere, and brought its
peak circulation to 2700 copies. 1t
fought the Republican organization
which then held the county offices,
and swiftly built up a formidable ma
chine of its own, electing some Of
hcials in 1918 and 1920 and the whole
set in 1922 and 1924. AS the paper
owned by 600 farmers (The Peoples
Publishing Company, it had, for sew
eral years, almost the undivided sup
port of the agricultural population,
and not only governed the county but
found time to dabble in state and ma
tional politics and to discuss contem-
porary cultural issues as well. In 1924,
however, opposition to it began to ga
Their strength, largely because of the
extreme arrogance and bullying abuse
iveness which it displayed at this
time, and The Sheridan County Far
mer, a short-lived paper launched by
DR.. j. c. Storkan and a group Of
Plentywood business men and edited
by A. w. March, Roger Burke and
Numie Scott, put up a stiff fight
against it. In 1925 it employed as its
editor P. j. Wallace, who managed to
a~ntagonize some of the papers best
supporters; at the same time it was
very plausibly accused of having pad
ded its bills for county printing, and
as a result it did not elect a full tick
ct in 1926. Finally, in November of
that year, county funds amounting to
S10S,000 were stolen from the county
treasurer's Office in a sensational mys-
terry hold-up which the Farmer-Labor
authorities failed to solve. Instant ru-
mors of conspiracy, involving Treas
urer Eng Torstenson and Sheriff Rod
ney Salisbury with the vanished ban
dts, began to circulate and gain cred
The conservatives seized their
opportunity and prepared for the 1928
campaign by consolidating the Repub-
lican and Democratic groups and
The Plentywood Herald under
the dierction of Harry E. Polk, a North
Dakota newspaperman, who developed
it into an effective opposition mouth
piece which was joined by the other
surviving papers, The Medicine Lake
Wave and The Redstone Review. The
bitter campaign which followed ended
with the complete defeat of the Red
ticket. Since then the conservatives
have controlled the county, and The
Plentywood Herald has become the
leading newspaper, with a present cir
culation of 1,450. The Producers News
has remained active as the organ of
various radical factions. but has very
advertising sr> md only a
fraction of its form / alton. After
an interval under IL .fferent edit
ors, it is now again eu.ted by Charles
E. Taylor (A,B,K,N,O,P,Q,R,S).
Beginning about 1922, the county
enjoyed a second period of good crops
and prosperity which included the
bumper years of 1927 and '28 and end
ed suddenly i n1929. During this per-
and for some years preceding it
the county's development, though not
particularly deliberate in some depart
nents, was much less spectacular than
the period 1908-1915. Educational
facilities were increased; the county
library, established 1919, was moved
nto a better building and grew to
more than 5000 volumes; ard Plenty
woods Civic League {orgsnized in
1914 promoted the construction of a
community hall wrich in 1872 became
he Sheridan County Memorial Hos
)ital. Outlook had already established
hospital (private; DR.. Louis A. Man
GAM in 1914. The county Red Cross
vas very active during the influenza
Epidemic which followed the war; it
established several emergency hospit-
lis which cared for a large number of
patients, and eve patroled the less
accessible districts to make sure that
10 sick families were left without at
enhance. After the conversion of the
community hall into a hospital, a large
known as the Farmer-Labor
was erected in Plentywood
it served as a civic center until
he construction of the High School
Auditorium in 1882. At Medicine Lake
llso a community hall was built as a
part of the high school; and nearly
very community in the county ac-
Iuired some similar center, notable
'mong them being the Wolf Creek
Hall, built in the country about ten
niles south of Redstone (1927), and
he Danish Brotherhood Hall at Dag
mar. Many organizations, social and
commercial, have been represented in
he county at various times; even the
ku Kiux Khan appeared long enough
% burn a cross or two in 1923. Many
churches were built in the years 1912
.915, and a few considerably later. Be-
,ause of the preponderance Of German
md Scandinavian elements in the pop
llation the Lutheran ones are now the
most numerous. One or two commun-
ty bands existed in the twenties, but
lave been superseded by high school
there have also been numerous
private orchestras (A,D,M,O,P,S).
The economic depression following
929 conceded in Sheridan County
With a new period of drouth and crop
Many banks and business
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