Dakota Datebook

If you were standing on the riverbank in Fargo in the summer of 1882, you could watch thousands of pine logs from Minnesota forests floating north on the Red River toward sawmills in Winnipeg.

There is no question that summer storms can bring damaging effects. On this date in 1923, newspapers reported on various storm systems that swept through portions of Canada and North Dakota, wreaking havoc as they went.

On May 17, 1876, Lieutenant Colonel George Custer bid farewell to his wife, Libby, and rode out of Fort Abraham Lincoln at the head of the 7th Cavalry. He never returned. North Dakotans took his loss personally. Custer was a popular figure, and the territory was stunned when news of his defeat became known.

Following his 1820 expedition to map the American West, Major Stephen H. Long named it the “Great American Desert.” Other early explorers, like Zebulon Pike, confirmed Long’s assessment that the Great Plains were unfit for cultivation. But the East was settled — some said overly settled — and Americans needed room to grow. The brave and the dreamers packed their bags and headed west, with visions...

On this date in 1899, the Wahpeton Globe noted, “The law enforcement league cleaned the gamblers and sure-thing men out of Fargo last week, and the soiled doves took flight, many of them lighting down on Wahpeton and Breckenridge. The wave of reform will soon blow over, and the old familiar faces will be seen in their accustomed places by those looking for them.”