USA > North Dakota > Dickey County > History Of Dickey County, ND, 1930 > Part 10
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The livery business flourished. After the railroad came down from Jamestown the stage business was discontinued. Frank Mellinger, the driver of the old Columbia stage, came down to Oakes and started a livery barn. Mr. Benjamine, the man who operated the old stage line, had lost all that he had made in the freighting and stage business by speculating in wheat, and had to go to Mellinger for a job. He would not go to his relatives in Nebraska while he was in comfortable circumstances, so when misfortune came he was too proud to go to them, and worked and lived in Mellinger's barn. Sometimes when he was in bad humor he would say; "Curse you, I own everything else here. I started Mellinger up in business, and everything he has got I own". Benjamine had an old army rifle that he had used when among the Indians freighting on the plains. He prized it greatly and boasted that he could kill a deer at half a mile with it. Some one stole the gun and he felt very sorry about it, and said that he would not have parted with it for any amount of money, but he never gotit back. Finally when Mellinger sold out the livery barn Benjamine drifted away to Nebraska and died years ago among his relatives there.
Moore's livery barn run by O. H. P. Moore was well-known for a time, and was later owned by his sons, Dick and Charley under the name of Moore Brothers. Dick is now in Montana and Charley lives near Crete. The old barn was moved two lots north in the next block and is owned by H. P. Low. W. J. Roberts was a late comer in the livery business, and one of the best known barns was the Up-to-Date Livery, Feed & Sale Barn. The Teal & Stanley Barn back of the Vinkle House was a good cement block building which became known as the "horse hospital." It was owned by S. W. Teal, a veterinarian from Canada and George J. Stanley whose home had been in Sargent County. Another barn that was well known
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and which continued until automobiles took the place of horses was that of Mr. J. B. Andrews, whose place of business was just across the North Western tracks to the west. Mr. Andrews had come to Dakota from Illinois in the late eighties and had been located in Milnor until 1901 when he removed to Oakes. He was a public spirited man, serving efficiently as a member of the school board in Oakes and taking a prominent part in church and charity work. He was fond of horses and kept a good livery stable, always having horses for sale and always ready to buy more. In his ad- vertisement he states that they "usually have a few high class drivers tha- can move along a little." Mr. Andrews was the owner of the pacer, "Cockt swain", whose time was 2:10 and which was quite well known on the track at the county fairs. He had bought this horse as a two-year old while at Milnor and brought him to Oakes with him in 1901. The horse lived to be twenty-five years old and was such a favorite with his owner that he had him chloroformed at last.
The first bank in Oakes was organized in 1886 by a group of men of which Mr. Thomas F. Marshall was the moving spirit. This was called the Bank of Oakes and they built a little banking house 25 by 40 at the corner of Union and Second Streets. Mr. Marshall was its first cashier, and as office boy had his nephew H. C. McCartney, with whom Mr. Marshall worked in business relations the rest of his life. Mr. McCartney became cashier of the bank in 1891, and soon after this the name was changed to that of the First National Bank of Oakes. The Marshall-McCartney Company was organ- ized November 9, 1902, to handle farm lands, live-stock and grain, and it had offices in the back part of the bank building. This bank has come through the changing vicissitudes of good times and hard times and probably what might be considered their good fortune has been very largely due to the foresighted policy adopted by this firm which allowed them to handle their real-estate through the subsidiary company that was thoroughly organized to manage its interests.
In July, 1887, when Oakes was less than a year old, a party of surveyors came in from the east. The terminus of the Soo, then the Minneapolis & Pacific, was at Forman, but it was coming west. Without any announcement, Mr. Underwood and Mr. Lidgerwood, two prominent officials of the Soo came in with their chief engineer. They had the papers to show that their road had purchased the old grade and all the rights of the Dakota Midland Railway Company, a corporation that had been organized at Ellendale to promote the construction of a line from that town to Wahpeton, then a promising railroad city. The Dakota Midland had secured the right of way and had done considerable grading. Its line passed through the old town of Hudson and to the south of Oakes about three miles.
The Soo officials went into conference with T. F. Marshall, at that time cashier of the Bank of Oakes, and through him the fact was communicated to the citizens that the Soo would enter Oakes providing inducements were
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made. With his characteristic energy Mr. Marshall set to work and secured the right-of-way through the town, and armed with other concessions from the citizens, went to Minneapolis, and not only succeeded in getting the road to enter Oakes but secured a contract from the officials to make it a division point on the line. The Soo kept pushing westward finally reaching Bismarck in 1901, and by purchase of the Bismarck & Washburn line secured access to the coal fields of McLean County.
Another railroad line had been scouted out to run from the main line of the Northern Pacific at Wadena through Fergus Falls, Wahpeton and on to the west. On a trade with the Great Northern the Northern Pacific secured the grade to Milnor and put it in operation to that town by the early eighties. In 1898 this line was built into Oakes to make connection with the Jamestown and Fargo branches. The Soo built its depot down on Second Street so the town has always had two depots, but it has enjoyed unusual advantages as a railroad center. The time tables of these roads about 1905 show that there were eight passenger trains daily on the follow- ing schedule: The North Western left for the south at 5:10 in the morning, the Northern Pacific for the east at 6:15 A. M., returning at 8:20 in the evening; the train for Fargo and Jamestown arrived at 1:30 in the after- noon and left at 2:30 P. M .; the Soo Passenger went west at 7:00 A. M. and east from Bismarck at 7:30 in the evening; the North Western arrived from the south at 2:30 in the morning.
This schedule gave Oakes a mail service hardly equaled outside of the great cities. A post-office was established late in 1886, with Mr. Hineman as the first postmaster. He was followed by Mrs. Dan Lynch, and then Mr. J. B. Root was postmaster, after whom came Mr. M. N. Chamberlain for two terms. After Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. W. H. Bush was postmaster, and in his term the postoffice was burned in the big fire that swept several business blocks.
The year 1903 brought a distinct era of substantial building to Oakes. Figures that are probably conservative show the amount of building done. In 1902 improvements amounted to $52,000, in 1903 to $65,000, in 1904 to $82,000, in 1905 to $65,000 and in 1906 to $86,000. The residents of Oakes in these years will remember that the Klein & Sutmar Block was erected in 1904 with its majestic seventy-five foot front, a substantial brick structure that has proved its worth through the years, as there are forty-one office and living rooms on the second floor and large mercantile rooms on its first floor. The proprietors who built the store came up from St. Paul in 1894 and had large farm and ranch interests southeast of Oakes. Across Second Street to the east stood the Roberts Block, in which was the Corner Hardware managed by J. W. Bush, the Economy Store which was bought by J. H. Jesson a newcomer from Wahpeton, and in whose store the fire started, to make such a devastation in the center of the city, and The Senate Cafe operated by W. T. Brown, an Eaton Rapids boy who came into the county
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with its first pioneers. The second floor of the Roberts Block was fitted up for living rooms.
After the postoffice block, the Kennedy Block was next east and was a brick building in the basement of which Mr. Kennedy had his barber shop. The Point Billiard Hall occupied the first floor, and Dr. Gale's dental parlors had the second floor front. Harmonizing closely with the Kennedy Block was the Lockie Building, the first brick building erected in Oakes. This was erected in 1903 by Mr. W. M. Lockie, who has had a hardware store in one of the first floor rooms ever since he built the block. It has another business place on the first floor which in the early days was occupied by the Palace Clothing Company. Beyond these Miss Piper and the Boardman Brothers had store. fronts, and around the corner on Third Street and a little further north was the hospital built of concrete blocks by Dr. Boardman.
On the south side of Union Street the most conspicuous building was the First National Bank, when they pulled back to the alley the old building they had used for twenty years and erected the present structure of Roman pressed brick heavily trimmed with Bedford stone, with its portico on Union Street supported by four Corinthian columns of Bedford stone. Built in 1906 and 1907, it is one of the finest and most commodious bank buildings in the northwest, and the foresight of those who planned it gave the town an edifice of which any city, regardless of its size, may well be proud. Beyond the Frist National Bank on the south side of the street were the Argyle Hotel and several other business places, the fine home of the Oakes National Bank and then the large house of the Cash Merchantile Company. This building was taken to pieces in Columbia and moved up to Oakes in 1893. This contained the store of the Bittman brothers on the ground floor, and the Opera Hall, or what was known as the Academy of Music, on the upper floor with full stage settings and gallery, and with an outside stairway from the Third Street side. The Bon Ton Dressmaking Parlors of Mrs. M. Thompson were also in the front of the second floor. The Opera Hall was the main place of amusement in the city, furnishing the largest auditorium for public meetings. There were also several good places of business on Second Street.
One of the old landmarks of the early days is the home of the Oakes Machine Company at the corner of Second and Elm Streets. This was built by P. J. Aasen a native of Minnesota, who came to Oakes in 1889 and put up his machine shop that same year. It was known as the Oakes Auto & Machine Company, and was one of the best furnished machine shops in Dakota. It had two iron lathes, planer, drill, engine, emery grinder, and a blacksmith shop. It manufactured plows of its own patent and was noted as a boiler repairing shop. Mr. Aasen invented and patented an auto engine, and did a large business with the farmers and thresher-men of that part of Dickey County. Mr. Aasen is still in business at the same place and has kept his building in such repair that it looks the same old landmark
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so well known by the men who brought him machinery problems in the early days.
The Oakes Mill was built in 1895 by Mr. J. H. Rapp, and had a capacity of fifty barrels of flour per day. In 1899 a new management bought the mill and increased its capacity to one hundred fifty barrels a day, and in 1904 built an elevator of twenty thousand bushels capacity, so that the mill and elevator took in about 65,000 bushels of wheat from the crop of 1906. Mr. C. P. Walton from Wisconsin, a brother of Frank Walton of Ellendale, was president and treasurer of the company and Mrs. C. P. Walton the efficient secretary, with Fred Knock as the wheat-buyer. In recent years the competition with the great milling enterprises has made it advisable to cease operating the mill.
The Oakes National Bank was organized by a group of farmers headed by H. S. Nichols and J. H. Denning. H. S. Nichols was an Iowa farmer who had heard of the new land opened in Dakota and had come to the Clement neighborhood and built up a splendid farm. Mr. Denning was from Ohio and had come up to the Hudson neighborhood where he had been successful in building up a fine farm of 480 acres. These men with some of their neighbors and acquaintances enlisted a capital of $25,000 and organized a bank, constructed a fine two-story brick building and commenced business October 12th, 1903. Mr. Nichols was made president, and E. J. Walton who had come to Oakes in 1897 to accept a position in the Bank of Oakes (now First National), was the vice-president. In 1906 J. E. Bunday who had had experience in the Gwinner State Bank was the cashier. Under conservative management this bank did a good business. In recent years it has occupied a good banking building on the corner diagonally across from the First National Bank, formerly the site of the old Roberts Block. In the uncertain times of 1927-28 it experienced some of the difficulties common to banking, and had to close its doors, but gives promise of meeting its obligations as well as possible with the "frozen securities" characteristic of this period.
While the business houses were being built on a true city scale there were many fine residences constructed. Many of these are yet among the best to be found in cities of this size or larger. Building material has always been available. The Salzer Lumber Company came in early and is still in business (1929) on south Second Street. The Oakes Lumber Company was started in 1905 by the Murray brothers, three of whom had taken land and added to their holdings in Hudson township until they had a combined acreage of 1600 acres in improved farms. In recent years the Thompson Yards have established one of their well appointed yards on Union Street between the Northern Pacific Railroad and First Street.
The Marshall-McCartney Company deserve special mention for their advanced practice in farming and stock-raising. Not only were they among the first to grow durum wheat in large quantities, but as long ago as 1906
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they had 350 acres of corn that yielded 40 bushels to the acre. They sold many of their scattered quarters and bought the Brooks ranch of 2,000 acres in James River Valley township, and in addition to that leased five sections. A great deal of their land was under hog wire fence so that they could keep sheep as well as cattle. Through the winter of 1905-6 they carried 350 head of beef cattle and summered 1,000 head, selling 750 head for beef in the fall of 1906. They would go out to Montana and buy up sheep to turn into their fields after harvest, arranging to have them stopped over on their way to Chicago so that they could reship with only the extra expense of $10 a car. In 1905 they bought 2,000 sheep in this way, and in 1906 bought 10,000 for the purpose of feeding them. At a profit of $1.00 a head they made good money. Mr. Marshall was especially interested in this type of stock management and encouraged his neighbors to get the benefit of this means of conserving what otherwise might be wasted.
The H. J. Johnson Land & Cattle Company was another firm that did good business with live-stock. Mr. Johnson was born in Denmark and came to this country when quite young. He came to Oakes in 1898, and opened a set of offices and purchased a farm a half-mile west of the city on the bank of the James, where he established a herd of full-blooded Hereford Cattle. Mr. Johnson was agent for some of the holdings of the Baldwin Corporation in eastern Dickey County, and the firm had offices for a number of years on the second floor of the Lockie Block, but for several years recently the office has been the old Oakes National Bank Building, which it now owns.
Mr. E. W. Bittman was one of the great builders of Oakes. He came to Oakes from Columbia at the time of the sale of town lots in 1886. He purchased the lot on which the Roberts Block and later the Oakes National Bank were located, and established a branch of the "Great Western" with headquarters at Aberdeen. In 1893 he had a building brought up from Columbia and erected the present C. M. C. Block, where he was in business with his brother Fred for a number of years, finally selling to Mr. Seifert who has continued the business at the same location.
J. W. Bush was a pioneer in Dickey County, for he came to Port Emma with his father in 1882, and turned the first sod in four townships, Port Emma, Lovell, Hudson and Riverdale. He was engaged in business at Straubville for a time and came to Oakes in 1903, where he bought and managed the Corner Hardware in the Roberts Block until the fire of 1907. After the First National Bank moved into their new building, Mr. Bush established his hardware business in the old bank building and it has con- tinued there ever since. Mr. Bush's death occured in 1927. His brother, W. H. Bush came to Port Emma in 1882, and has been in Oakes from the first, was postmaster for two terms from January 7th, 1906, and has been in the grocery business in the same building on the south side of Union Street for the past fifteen years.
Mr. W. M. Lockie came to Dickey County in 1883 developing a farm
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of two sections in Bear Creek Township. He put up the handsome Lockie Block in 1903, and has been in the hardware business ever since. He has seen the growth of Oakes from the time when he used to sell the boys the two-wheeled carts for joy riding to the days of the Packards and high powered cars. John H. Coulter came to Dakota Territory in 1879, and to Oakes in 1891, and has been engaged in grain buying, some of the time at Norway Spur and lately for the Atlantic Elevator on the Soo Line in Oakes. He has served as city marshal and on the Board of Education. When he came to Oakes it was a small town of about 355 people, but his first experience made him think them very lively. As he stepped off the train at the Union depot he saw a bunch of threshers being herded out of town across the tracks to the west. As they passed, the herder, Dan Lynch the town marshal said, "If you fellows want to fight get out of the city limits and go to it, but you can't fight on this side in town." He followed them over the tracks outside the city limit where they turned on him and licked him before they settled their private fights. Another grain buyer of about this time was W. E. Dickinson, who was in Oakes for a time before going to Fullerton.
John Kennedy came to Oakes in 1888, a barber by trade. He built the Kennedy Block in 1906, rebuilt it after it was burned in 1907, and is yet (1928) in Oakes. Mr. Kennedy was Representative from Dickey County in the Legislative Assembly of 1889 and introduced the bill prohibit- ing the use of dogs for hunting. Ritterbush & Son were contractors and builders who had much of the building in the years of new construction. John Schill came to Oakes in 1886 and his shoe shop has been a landmark for two generations. W. R. Bishop had a meat market two doors east of the Argyle Hotel. Sol Hunter came to Oakes in 1887 and is still in Oakes. C. B. Fenton will be remembered by the older settlers, also G. A. Tuthill who is still (1929) in Oakes. S. Bergenthal came to Oakes in 1897 and worked in the Union depot till 1901, when he went to the Soo depot as its agent and has remained with that company since. In 1928 he was elected mayor of Oakes, and has one of the best homes in the city. The North Dakota Artesian Well Company, established in 1905 with the man who is now Senator Peter Norbeck of South Dakota as its president, has put down a great number of artesian wells in Dickey and other counties. While its main work is now repairing wells, it is still in business with Mr. Fred Sletvold as manager. Among the newer business men Mr. C. E. Knox has taken a prominent part in the business and political life of the city. He was for several terms one the Representatives of Dickey County in the Legislative Assembly and has had a hand in shaping much constructive legislation. W. S. Wickersham and W. D. Huffman have served as county officers.
Dr. H. P. Boardman was the first physician in Oakes. He was a student of medicine at Ann Arbor, Michigan and a graduate of Bellevue
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Hospital of New York City. He was the family physician for many of the early residents of Oakes and built the Oakes Hospital in 1904. With his brother Martin he was interested in the furniture business. Perhaps it was not quite appropriate that a physician should be connected with an undertaking establishment, but that fact did not detract from the popularity and worth of Dr. Boardman. He sold his hospital and practice to the Maercklein brothers, Fred W. and Ivan R. who were prominent physicians in Oakes for about twenty years. Dr. Fred Maercklein died in 1925, and Dr. Ivan Maercklein moved to Wishek.
Oakes was organized as a city in 1888. Mr. Thomas F. Marshall was its first mayor. There were three wards, and J. B. Root and Dan Lynch were elected aldermen from the First Ward, M. H. Roberts and A. Ritter- bush from the Second Ward, and J. F. McCarthy from the Third Ward. J. W. Lucas was the first Treasurer, A. G. Hemenway the first City Justice, E. W. Robey the first City Attorney, J. E. Spurling the first City Auditor, B. F. Roddle the first Chief of Police, and E. G. Baldwin the Assessor. The first Police Magistrate was chosen in 1890 and R. S. Angell filled that office. The people of the city had faith in the purposes of their officers and loyally backed any plan for improvement. A city hall of good size, 55 by 80, to house the offices of the city government and the fire department was erected in 1907. This is a brick structure with ornamental trim that has given good service.
The newspaper has always been an important factor in the develop- ment of a new country, and no city can boast the name without a good live sheet to give the people the news. The first newspaper in Oakes was the Hudson Herald, which had been issued in that town by Frank Busteed and was brought to Oakes in 1886. The Oakes Republican was the offspring of the Hudson Herald, the Port Emma Times and the Jim River Journal, the latter being the paper started at the little settlement of Eaton. The Repub- lican was run by Ellis and Brown.
When matters became interesting in the political field and the people were beginning to believe that populism was the real hope of the country, the Oakes Independent was launched in 1893 with E. W. Weston, a home- steader in Hudson Township as its editor. C. S. Brown was editor of the Oakes Republican in the early nineties, when the plant was owned by a stock company, and was later joined by W. L. Straub, who moved his Rustler to Oakes from Cogswell in 1894 and assumed an interest. The Republican became the property of Ed. A. Smith in 1898; three years later it absorbed the Oakes Independent, and in October, 1902, was purchased by Goddard & Wright, proprietors of the Dickey County Leader at Ellendale. Mr. F. S. Goddard was editor for a year and then the partnership dissolved, Mr. Goddard taking the Leader and Mr. Wright the Republican. In 1906 the name was changed to "The Oakes Times," continuing the former volumes of the Republican; new and modern equipment was added in 1905 and a
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souvenir edition of the Times was published as a Christmas number in 1906. The Oakes Times has consistently advocated the principles of the Repub- lican party in state and national affairs, and is now (1929) the only paper published in Oakes and one of the two papers of Dickey County.
It is characteristic of a new town that the people at once establish their churches. In this Oakes is no exception, as early in its history five churches with buildings of their own were organized. The Presbyterians, Meth- odists, Roman Catholics, Swedish Lutherans and Swedish Mission societies constructed the first church buildings. The Catholic church has been remodeled but still stands on its original site. The Swedish Mission church was moved out to Hample and is still in use there. The Methodist building is still on the old lot but has been sold to the Norwegian Lutherans and a commodious brick building built by the Methodists. The Presbyterian building was sold to the German Lutherans and a fine new structure built in 1919 by the Presbyterians on their original location. There were several other denominations represented in Oakes in the early days and some of these have since then erected places for worship.
The City of Oakes has a beautiful cemetery on the hill two miles east of town. This is on the quarter of land which belonged to M. N. Cham- berlain, and at first lots were bought of him. The organization of an associa- tion was made by T. W. Millham, M. N. Chamberlain and Dr. Matthews, and in 1904 the ground was platted and an association formed with H. V. Hicks as president, W. A. Pannbacker as vice-president and W. H. Bush as secretary treasurer, and the plat was recorded with the Register of Deeds on March 15th, 1904. In 1916 the cemetery was deeded to the City of Oakes and was later named Oakes View Cemetery. The names of a great many of the pioneers can now be found on the monuments of this cemetery.
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