USA > North Dakota > Dickey County > History Of Dickey County, ND, 1930 > Part 9
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Some of the people of Ellendale wanted a railroad east and west, and very soon after the settlement a company was organized under the leader- ship of Mr. W. H. Becker to promote such a road. The larger plan called for a line from the Missouri River about opposite Winona across the state to the Minnesota line, but special attention was given to a line east from Ellendale to Wahpeton. The right of way was secured and a charter ob- tained from the government, several towns were projected, notably Ransom and a town where Forman is now located, Hudson at the crossing of the James River was established and an office was opened by Mr. M. N. Cham- berlain in this town to promote the railroad and dispose of lots in the town- site. Considerable grading was done and the old grade is still visible in
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some places in each of the three counties of Dickey, Sargent and Richland. This company sold its holdings to the Minneapolis & Pacific, which built its line now known as the Soo over parts of the right of way, but as the Great Northern had built into the south part of the county this road went through Oakes and on to the west further north. In 1886 the Milwaukee built on to Edgeley, and the same year the Great Northern built into Ellen- dale from the east. This new road placed its depot in the northeastern part of town, and its old engine stall could be located as late as 1929. This road gave the city another line to the Twin Cities and added more mail service.
Before the coming of the Great Northern and the extension of the Mil- waukee there were connections by stage to many towns to the north and east. The directory of 1886 shows these connections as advertised at that time.
POST-OFFICE DIRECTORY .- Delivery open at 8 a. m. close at 8 p. m., open Sunday 6:30 p. m. close at 8 p. m. Mails from the east and south at 5:30 p. m. close at 9 p. m. daily. Grand Rapids, LaMoure, York- town and all Northern Dakota mails arrive at 8 p. m. and close at 9 p. m. daily. Keystone and Merricourt mails arrive at 8 p. m. Thursdays and Saturdays and leave Mondays and Fridays. Weston, Eaton, Emma and Milnor mails arrive at 12 noon and close at 2 p. m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Lorraine, Coldwater, Youngstown and Hoskins mail arrives at 6 p. m. Saturdays, and closes 9 p. m. Sundays. Hudson and Westbore mails come and depart irregularly. F. S. HORTON, P. M.
RAILROAD TIME TABLE .- C. M. & St. Paul R. R., leaves Ellen- dale at 7:45 a. m., Aberdeen at 1:30 p. m., arriving Minneapolis at 4:30 a. m. Returning leaves Minneapolis at 9 p. m., Aberdeen at 3 p. m., and arrives in Ellendale at 5:30 p. m. FRANK L. BACON, Agent.
The old court-house was the scene of many stirring conventions and public meetings. It was erected in time for the trial of the first murder in the county, a story which is told under Kentner township. It served the city for its school house in 1915-1916 while the new brick school was being built, and there were many meetings held there in the time of the World War. It was in use when the preparations for statehood made Dickey County and the middle part of LaMoure the Eighth District for the election of delegates to the Constitutional Convention. The nominating convention was held at the old court-house with delegates from all parts of the district. Mr. Flemington was selected early in the afternoon, and after some little skirmishing Dr. L. D. Bartlett was chosen as another candidate, but the third one was not so easily determined. The meeting ran over into the evening without adjournment but the delegates were afraid to go out for supper lest the opposition win and many had some lunch sent in for them. At about 2:30 in the night Mr. Rowe of Monango was selected for the third candidate. At the election held on the 14th of May these three men were elected, and in the Convention which began at Bismarck on July 4th, 1889,
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they proved active and influential delegates, taking part in some of the im- portant questions that had to be met by that body. The Industrial School and School for Manual Training was located at Ellendale the peculiar type of the school being largely the ideas of Dr. Bartlett in a plan that received Mr. Flemington's active support.
A water supply is essential to a city and in 1886 a deep well was driven in Third Avenue at the court house corner. This was put down to the "second flow" and furnished soft artesian water at a pressure that could fight fire in the highest building in town. When this flow was thought to be insufficient for all uses a well was put down on a lot bought for this purpose by the city on Fifth Avenue, but this well was put down to the "third flow" and furnished hard water. The pressure was enormous and a separate main was run down Main Street to afford fire protection and for any purpose for which the hard water could serve. When the soft water well ran down in pressure a pump was installed in the little well house in the street at Third Avenue and water power from the hard water well was used to pump the soft water and put it under pressure. The hard water well had to be recased in 1914 and by 1927 was so far beyond control that an overflow sewer was built to carry off the water.
In 1896-1897 there was a return of the severe winters of the earlier days, and for several weeks no train service was possible on the Milwaukee. The Great Northern was snowed under in January and did not run a train until the thaw of the following spring. Great snow banks blocked the streets and tunnels to the business houses were dug. For a time the mail was brought up as far as Frederick by overland conveyance and a man was sent to bring it from Frederick to Ellendale on horseback. The town was well supplied with fuel and provisions so no one suffered and help was given those in the country when there was need.
A gas plant was installed for lighting the business places and the homes as well as the streets, and a sewer system was installed early in the new century. On this sewer system some trouble was experienced from the objection of the people owning land along the run west and southwest of town. A septic tank had been installed but with the large amount of water used and the run off of the artesian wells the tank was not large enough, so the reduction of the sewage was not carried far enough before the overflow. A law suit was started but that trouble was averted by the city's purchasing a quarter section of land. Most of this land was afterwards sold with the flowage rights retained by the city, and soon after this a good reduction plan was installed that has served very well to dispose of the city's sewage.
When the Great Northern extended its line to Forbes a new brick station was constructed in its present location on Main Street, and in 1915, a new station was constructed by the Milwaukee. The period from 1905 to 1915 was one of substantial rebuilding. Fires, always a menace in a new town built of wooden construction and more or less cheaply and hurriedly
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put up, burned out several of the old business houses. A new opera house was put up by an organized company in co-operation with some of the owners of the lots. A fine new hotel, christened the Dickey, was put up on the old site of the Central House, probably the best hotel in the state for some years. The Leiby block, the Geer building and the Ellendale National Bank, and a fine banking building erected on the site of the old Holbrook House, were instances of this building program. The court-house was com- pleted in 1912, and the city built a beautiful brick city hall across Main Street from the old building of the early days. A new school building was erected on the old site, costing $60,000 at the time but worth double that on prices of a later time. The Methodists had outgrown the old building of 1883 and in 1916 erected a fine brick church on Main Street at Fourth Avenue. Several new homes had been erected, which with the shady and well-kept streets was making an attractive residence city of Ellendale. An electric plant was built in 1914 and in September of that year the city was lighted by electricty.
Then on a windy night, May 9, 1916 came the big fire, the event from which time has been reckoned since. The old Applequist livery barn at the corner of First Avenue and Third Street caught fire at about ten at night. The siding was in ribbons and the entire building was littered with chaff and hay. It had not been used for some time and in fact had been condemned by the city council and ordered removed as a menace to the safety of the town. How it got afire was not established but it made a terrible blaze. There was a north-west wind blowing at a gale of forty miles an hour, which fanned the blaze into one like a blow-torch. The fire spread to the row of buildings on the north side of Main Street and ignited the whole row; sparks and burning boards were blown through the town and set fire to a barn in the south-east part of town and to the prairie to the south. No one could stand before the blazing heat; the fire jumped Main Street to the south side and the wind blew live coals down the side streets and alleys with the result that two blocks were swept clean and two others almost clean of anything made of wood. By keeping the Christian Church on Main Street wet the fire was stoped there, and the homes of Leiby and Bodle on First Street formed the last ditch of the fight in that part of town, with strong reinforcement by the new Anderson house across the street. The last fight was made at the Davis house on Second Street. By turning up an old mortar mixer the fireman could hold the hose on the house and keep it wet in spite of the intense heat of the burning Baptist manse at their backs. A number of families living in the path of the fire were gotten out in safety, so no lives were lost although escape in many instances was very narrow. Some twenty-one families were burned out, three blocks of business places, including both newspaper plants; and the Baptist Church, the best church building in town, was burned by sparks blown into an open basement window.
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With characteristic western zeal, the business men who were burned out set to work to rebuild on more substantial lines, with the result that the business section now has some very commodious and attractive stores of fire-proof construction. To enhance the beauty of the streets a White Way was installed in 1926.
Some of the homes of the early days are still standing as homes of the newer generation or of the original pioneer. Among these are the Meachen home on Railroad Avenue; the Fred Walker place on Fourth Street, the Leiby home on First Street. The Flemington home is still located on its original site. The D. W. Coleman home was built by Hugh Martin and several of the houses in the west part of the town would be still recognized by the original builders.
When the Thompson Yards removed to their location by the Mil- waukee depot the company erected eight very neat cottages on the half block occupied by the lumber yard they had bought of the Kings.
There have been several times when the people desired a city park. The grounds of the State School, the court-house and the city school have been kept up in park-like order, and the site of the old city hall has been improved by a neat band-stand, but none of these are a city park. In 1909 Dr. M. F. Merchant, who had a new grove growing on his land east of the city, offered to turn it over for a park, provided the boulevard was im- proved and the property maintained in good order as a park, and provided that the improvements were made within ten years. Dr. Merchant had plotted an addition from his quarter which he designated "East Ellendale" about the time that he was preparing the offer of the park, but this addition was never made. Again in 1917 this tract on Dr. Merchant's quarter was again staked out and a sale of lots was held, but the project came to naught and the time for development of the park expired.
A more constructive measure in 1926 gave the city an opportunity for a real park. The taxes on Block 8 and parts of blocks 6, 10 and 12 of the DeCoster, Flemington & Wells Addition remained unpaid for several years and the property reverted to the county, so the County Commissioners gave these lots to the city for a public park. Plans are well under way to improve these and the city has a Park Board for such purposes. As a further beautifying of the streets and highways a row of trees on each side was planted along the half mile to the cemetery and along the highway out of town to the north.
In the winter of 1918-1919 the city was visited by an epidemic of the Flu. A hospital was established in the firemen's rooms at the City Hall and the local Red Cross chapter took care of the people who needed hospital attention. Mr. H. C. Peek and Mr. Ira Barnes took charge of this work, and many, especially of the students of the State School who were here away from home, were cared for with excellent results.
While Ellendale is on two railroads and two excellent highways it is
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pre-eminently a city of homes. A good building and loan association has helped people acquire their own homes, and probably a larger percentage own their own homes in this city than in the average town of the western part of the country.
A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
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CHAPTER XI
THE CITY OF OAKES
[The Society is indebted for the information in this chapter to the stories of the late Mons Nelson, Geo. H. Ladd, John H. Coulter, W. H. Bush, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Root, W. M. Lockie and several others of the pioneers who knew the city in its early days; and especially to Mr. Alex R. Wright, who has very generously allowed free use of material found in back numbers of the Oakes Times.]
T HE story of Oakes really begins before the plat of the townsite was made or the coming of the railroads. In the first place nature did an excellent piece of work in preparing the land for a city. A dry knoll a mile back from the James underlaid with veins of first class water is a good preparation. The soil has enough sand to make it easily worked and still is rich in plant food, level but not swampy, sloping enough for drainage, a good soil on which people can be healthy and prosperous.
When the new country was open for settlement, many people needed to cross from the line of activity along the Northern Pacific railway to that along the new lines of the North Western and Milwaukee some hundred miles to the south. It is easier to follow a river than to have no natural guide so the people who made the trip between these two new lines of west-
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ward immigration went up and down the valley of the James. The Nicollet and Fremont expedition of 1839 is an example, as they passed up the James through Dickey County on July 17th and 18th of that year.
The Fort Totten Trail went up the east side of the James, and when traffic invited the establishment of a stage line, the Columbia and Jamestown stage, established by Benjamine in 1880, adopted the old Trail as its road. A part of its line was very nearly along what is now Fourth Street in Oakes. The men who were operating that line moved into Oakes when the railroad superseded that means of travel.
The first settler on what is now the site of Oakes was William Mills, a native of Ireland who had come to America in 1870. He came to Dakota from Pennsylvania in the early eighties, and found some land that suited him along the line of the stage route. He filed on the southeast quarter of Section 20 for a homestead and took the southwest of Section 21 as a tree claim. His sod shanty stood on the southeast corner of his homestead, in the low ground just south of where the Wadena line of the Northern Pacific crosses the section line, or what is now Fourth Street. Mr. Mills was a good cook and worked much of the time at the relay station at Bear Creek, but made his residence and improvements on his claims so that he proved up on both quarters. Mr. John M. Jones had the quarters just south of Mr. Mills. At the time of making these land entries there was no prospect of a city on their land, but the locations brought these four quarters to a meeting place where Union and Fourth Streets of the city of Oakes now cross. At the time of the settlement of these two men the nearest towns were Ellendale thirty miles away, Grand Rapids thirty-five miles, Lisbon forty-five miles to the northeast, and Columbia thirty-seven miles to the south.
With the settlement of the region between Jamestown and Columbia it was inevitable that there should be a railroad between these towns, as the day of the stage coach was passing. The North Western was building up the James River Valley. Three towns, Eaton, Port Emma and Hudson, had been located on the west bank of the James in Dickey County, and it was thought the railroad would come up the west side of the river. In fact the promoters of Hudson were hoping to make that town the crossing point of the North Western and a future east and west line. As the survey was extended these towns were doomed to disappointment as the new line was located up the east side of the river. Even then Hudson hoped the new town would be located across from it, but the survey went on to the north.
Both the North Western and the Northern Pacific were studying the opportunity of a connecting line between their main lines. The Northern Pacific had built into LaMoure and the North Western was coming north, so the question was how much should each build, or were there to be parallel- ing lines. Some sort of agreement was made, and the North Western built up as far as Ludden and was willing to stop there. The little town of Ludden over on the fish-hook bend of the James moved over to the railroad, but the
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North Western had the townsite and the Northern Pacific was not willing to come into Ludden, so a compromise was effected whereby the site of the junction town should be further north.
In the month of May, 1886, W. K. Cook, the general right-of-way agent of the North Western, made his appearance. He was looking for a desirable location as he knew the junction of the roads would make a good- sized town. He camped for a while to determine the adaptability of a location he had found, discovered that good water in abundance could be obtained any place at a depth of from twelve to sixteen feet, good water right out of the gravel, and that the natural lay of the land would afford excellent drainage. In the month of August, Mr. Cook secured options on the west quarter sections of land owned by Mills and Jones. A plat of the new town was made, and the main street known as Union Street, was laid out east and west on the section line and Fourth Street along the north and south section line. In the latter part of September the North Western laid its track to a point two miles south of Bear Creek, or in other words into the new town, and the Northern Pacific soon built down from the north, and the joining of their rails made the first connecting link between the northern and southern parts of Dakota Territory.
The original plat which was surveyed on September 14th and filed with the Register of Deeds on September 15th, 1886, consisted of seventeen blocks, seven of them and a line of lots along the Northern Pacific right of way north of Union Street, and eight blocks and a line of lots along the North Western right of way in the Jones quarter south of Union Street. Very soon after this three additions had to be made; the Western Town Lot Company's Addition to the south and west of the original plat, the Mc- Carthy Addition on the south and west parts of the southwest of Section 21, which was Mr. Mill's tree claim, and the Washburn Addition which included the whole of the northwest quarter of Section 28, with the exception of the railroad land belonging to the newly-arrived Minneapolis & Pacific Railway. This addition was the tree claim of Mr. John M. Jones, and it is said that Mr. Jones received $1000.00 for his homestead for a townsite and $9000.00 for his tree claim. The bargain with Mr. Mills seems not so easily found.
The name of the new town was given it in honor of T. F. Oakes, at that time Vice-President and General Manager of the Northern Pacific Railway Company. The new city was laid out on a plan worthy of its god-father. Instead of streets the usual width of sixty-six feet, they were made eighty feet wide and everything had its start from the section lines. The name of the city had something to do with naming the streets, as those running east. and west, with the exception of Union, were given the name of some tree. South from Union they are Elm, Ash, Beech and Maple in order; north the first streets are Cedar, Pine and Oak; in McCarthy Addition they continue to the north as Poplar, Catalpa and Elder. The north and south streets were numbered, beginning with First Street about 100 feet east of
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the railroad rights-of-way, and continuing eastward to Eleventh Street on the quarter line through Sections 21 and 28. Other additions have harmonized with the original plan to make Oakes a symmetrical city.
The railroad companies had advertised the sale of town lots for Septem- ber 29th, 1886, but before that time people were coming to look up prospects for residence and business places in the town-to-be. Mr. George H. Ladd had put up a hotel, the first in Oakes. As no one could locate on the town- site he had this hotel just off the town-site to the east and pulled it over onto Second Street after he bought a lot there. Mr. Ladd has the unique distinction of helping to found three towns in Dickey County. In 1883 he built a hotel at Hudson and took a prominent part in the early days of that town. In 1886 he was one of the first on the ground at Oakes, and in 1905 he was the first to erect a store at Forbes and was its first post-master.
At the sale of town lots, Mr. P. S. Peabody was the purchaser of the first lot offered, paying $250.00 for it. In an hour's time $14,000.00 worth of lots were sold in amounts ranging from $150.00 to $355.00 each. Work was begun at once on buildings and by the time winter came the city was a reality. Several buildings were moved in from other towns. Many were brought up from Hudson in the winter time, being hauled down on the ice after the James River had frozen over. The store building belonging to Elder White was pulled over from Yorktown at a later time. Some of the buildings brought in at that time are still standing (1929) as landmarks in Oakes. The printing shop and residence of Frank Busteed, the editor of the Hudson Herald stands on Union Street just east of the Telephone Exchange and looks much as it did at Hudson. Around on Second Street two blocks south the W. H. Marsh Block was brought up from Ludden, and just north of it a few rods is the Clark Building in which the Kemmerer Bank was located in Ludden. Across Second Street between Ogden's meat market and the photograph gallery stands a little old office building with sheet iron front that was brought up from Hudson, and just recently has been used as a laundry. Some others were brought up from Port Emma by the late T. W. Bush. The C. M. C. Store was brought in from Columbia by E. W. Bittman and remodeled. There may be some other business buildings or residences which were brought in from other towns but many of them have been changed or so thoroughly remodeled that their original appearance is not observable.
As the two railroads were agreed in building the line along the James they built a union depot just at the end of the Northern Pacific track on the north side of Union Street. This building now used as a freight house is still standing on the original site (1929).
Practically all the land had been homesteaded before the city of Oakes was founded, but it was the time of proving up and considerable land was being sold to new comers, so there were many transients passing through the new town. Henry Vinkle put up a good sized hotel at the corner of
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Union and First Streets. This was known as the Vinkle House and was built three stories high, with some business places on the first floor. It was remodeled about 1900 and has been a land mark for years. In 1887 Dan Lynch built a three story hotel across the street to the south of the Vinkle House and called it the Exchange Hotel. It has been remodeled several times but has been in continuous operation ever since its early days. In 1902 this hotel was bought by C. M. Stevens, who had homesteaded a farm and bought other land in Clement township. He made the hotel modern in its appointments, made several additions, and renamed the hostelry the Home Hotel. One block further east a third hotel was built and named the Argyle House. This was burned in 1891, but in 1892 Mr. A. G. Hemenway and his son-in-law Mr. Andrew White bought the site and built the two-story Argyle House, which was remodeled later and became the property of W. D. Huffman. These hotels did a good business which showed the activity of Oakes as a center of travel. In addition to them there was at a later time La Clair's restaurant in the Klein & Sutmar block which was well-known as a popular eating place.
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