Moving Day

By RUSSELL FORD-DUNKER

May 29 — Great Plains dwellers have been moving great big things from one place to another for a long time — things like teepees, claim shanties, railroad depots, barns, and even grain elevators. At times whole towns were moved to new locations when anticipated rail lines failed to materialize. In recent years, many a historic home has been moved out of harm’s way — be it rising water, the wheels of “progress,” or the wrecking ball.

This day in 1898 was moving day for one of the heaviest structures ever moved across the prairie. OK…“Across the prairie” is a bit of an exaggeration — this thing only moved about two and a half feet. But still…getting it moving and getting it to stop in the right place involved expert engineering, dangerous work, and a measure of luck. According to the Bismarck Daily Tribune the weight of the thing was calculated at nine million pounds.

Railroad engineers move very heavy things — that’s their stock in trade. But this move was a bold undertaking for Chief Engineer E. H. McHenry and crew. Their task was to move the concrete and granite pier that holds up the east span of the Northern Pacific bridge over the Missouri River. The structure rests on land — on the eastern slope in Bismarck.

This is no small bridge. The Mighty Missouri was a major obstacle when the rails reached Bismarck from the east in 1873. Crossing the Red, the Sheyenne and the James had been relatively routine. The rails stopped at Bismarck for nine years, except for temporary tracks laid on the river ice, until the bridge was completed in 1882. The delay was due in part to the railway’s financial problems, but the expense and the physical challenge of bridging the Missouri were contributing factors.

The east pier was problematic from the beginning. Though it rested on a 20-foot thick concrete foundation well below the surface of the ground, the giant structure was sliding toward the river at 3 to 4 inches per year. After futile attempts to stop the movement, engineers set out to excavate and modify the foundation and slide it back into position in 1898. Preparation for the big move lasted eight months.

On moving day — May 29 — the massive pier sat ready to move on a system of steel rails and rollers that had been inserted between the old and new foundations. All of this was down in a deep excavation. As pressure was applied with giant screws and levers, the pier began to move, but so did the earth on the west side of the excavation. As a great crack developed in the earth, work was stopped and the workmen scrambled out of the pit to safety.

Minutes later, the wall of the excavation caved in, falling against the west side of the pier. The Tribune reported, “For perhaps a second the ponderous granite cylinder trembled at the impact. Then there was a slight movement of the whole pier in a forward direction, and…then the huge stone structure slid forward at a speed which seemed impossible for so ponderous a mass…The entire pier shot forward grandly, majestically, smoothly upon its steel rollers…and then stopped dead upon the foundation…nature had assisted the work of the engineers…”

The move was an astonishing success, but didn’t totally solve the problem. According to Edward C. Murphy of the North Dakota Geological Survey, the east pier has continued to move over the years and additional countermeasures have been needed…but nothing so dramatic as 9 million pounds of granite moving majestically back to its proper place.

Train Accident

By JAYME JOB

May 30 — A “peculiar accident” was reported by the Fargo Forum on this day in 1902 that involved one fortunate little boy and one speeding passenger train. The incident occurred two days before near Glasgow, Montana, and concerned the Chamberlain family of Forest River, North Dakota. The family was returning home by train from their annual winter stay in Seattle, Washington when the peculiar event occurred.

According to Mr. and Mrs. Chamberlain, the family was sitting down to lunch in their train car when Mrs. Chamberlain gave her oldest son an empty glass bottle to toss out of the car’s open window. This was obviously a time before litter laws were in place, as throwing trash from train cars was a common practice of the day.

Anyhow, the five-year old boy took the bottle from his mother and proceeded to the opposite side of the car to toss it out. The boy threw the bottle with all his might from the car, and then, in his excitement, leaned over the edge of the window’s sill to get a good look at the bottle’s landing. As he peered after the bottle, the boy lost his balance and fell completely out of the open window. The Chamberlains rushed to the window to see what had become of their son, and saw that he had hit the ground and had rolled to the edge of the ditch alongside the locomotive’s tracks.

Mrs. Chamberlain sounded the car’s alarm, and brought the steam engine to a halt. The worried parents ran to inform the conductor, who immediately reversed the train an eighth-mile to where the boy lay. Miraculously, the family found the boy conscious and, despite some minor cuts and bruises, relatively unharmed.

The Fargo Forum added that the same accident would normally prove fatal to any adult, little less a small boy.

Richard Sykes

By CHRISTINA

CAMPBELL

May 31 — Richard Sykes was a representative for a syndicate based out of Manchester, England, looking to make land investments in the northwest United States. He arrived in Dakota Territory in December of 1881 and purchased 45,000 acres from the Northern Pacific Railway for about $1 an acre in Wells, Stutsman and LaMoure counties. His goal was to sell or rent improved land to farmers for a profit.

During the first year, Sykes, his resident farm manager Walter J. Hughes and 125 hired men, plowed 3,000 acres and hauled lumber from Jamestown to construct houses and barns. Then over the next few years he advertised the ready-to-cultivate land in newspapers across the country and even in England. One advertisement listed farms from 100 to 700 acres with good buildings on every farm. Land with a house and barn sold for $8 an acre and additional prairie land at $5 an acre. His land purchase from the railroad had included only odd-numbered sections. Even-numbered sections were owned by the US Government. Thus it was possible to buy or rent land from Sykes and then obtain additional land by homesteading or purchasing an adjoining quarter.

Richard Sykes knew that the success of his farming community required access to the mills in the east through a local railhead. The nearest railroad in 1881 was sixty miles away in Jamestown. So he platted the town of Sykeston in the center of his land purchase near the Pipestem Creek. A large grain elevator was constructed and lots were opened up for sale on the Fourth of July in 1883. The lowest priced residential lots were sold for $35 and choice business lots went for $175.

But Sykes was not the only one to recognize the need for a railhead in this area. Another English investor, John Gwynne Vaughan, saw a survey conducted by the Northern Pacific and determined to sell lots on another town site somewhere within Sykes bonanza community. On one of the even-numbered sections which was public land, Vaughan platted the town of Gwynne City only one mile northwest of Sykeston. He began promoting his town to Eastern investors, describing it as the “Metropolis of Wells County.” His brochures pictured a line of steamboats moving along the Pipestem between Gwynne City and Jamestown.

Fortunately for Richard Sykes, the potential competition from Gwynne City was short-lived. The post-office Vaughan had established closed by February of 1883 and Vaughan was later extradited back to England to stand trial for previous crimes committed there. That same summer, the Jamestown and Northern Railroad reached Sykeston.

The legacy Richard Sykes left behind extended beyond the town of Sykeston. He also founded the Pacific Railway towns of Alfred, Bowdon, Chaseley and Edgeley, ND. He is credited with introducing the game of rugby to the United States and he established the Sykes Theological Education Fund to encourage North Dakotans to enter the priesthood. In 1910 Richard Sykes and his family moved to California, where he was laid to rest on this day, May 31, 1923.

Farming in

the West Stamp

By CHRISTINA

SUNWALL

June 1 — The Trans-Mississippi Exposition opened in Omaha, Nebraska, on this day in 1898. In commemoration, the US Post Office Department issued a set of nine stamps, including the two-cent “Farming in the West” stamp.

The image for the “Farming in the West” stamp had been reproduced from a photograph taken by John R. Hamlin in 1888 of the Chaffee Farm, a bonanza farm in Cass County, North Dakota.

The 1898 copper red stamp depicted a plowing scene from the Chaffee Farm, complete with sixty-one horses and their drivers, including Evan Nybakken, the driver in the foreground with his left hand up as if waving, although he was actually grabbing his hat so that it wouldn’t blow away.

Alexander Hughes

By CHRISTINA

SUNWALL

June 2 — In 1883, the Dakota Territory Assembly voted to relocate the territorial capital from Yankton. They created a special commission with instructions to “select a suitable site for the seat of government of the Territory of Dakota, due regard being had to its accessibility from all portions of the Territory…”

After visiting many aspiring towns the Capital Commission returned to Fargo to make their final decision. But the commission struggled to come to a consensus. According to Burleigh F. Spalding, a member of the Capital Commission, on the first ballot, the members voted for seven different locations, none receiving a majority. By the twelfth ballot, Bismarck had four of the nine votes. Finally on the thirteenth ballot, five of the nine members voted for Bismarck. On this day, June 2, 1882, the Capital Commission announced their selection for the new territorial capitol.

The fifth and deciding vote for Bismarck was cast by the President of the Capital Commission, Alexander Hughes.

Born in Ontario, Canada, in September of 1846, Hughes was raised in Columbia County, Wisconsin. When the Civil War erupted, he enlisted at the age of 14, serving with his two brothers in Company B, Seventh Wisconsin Infantry, assigned to the Army of the Potomac. Seriously wounded in the 1864 Battle of North Anna from a shot that entered his left side and exited his right, he was finally forced out of service. Returning to Wisconsin, Hughes studied business and law, eventually moving to Elk Point, Dakota Territory in 1871 to practice law. Within a year Alexander Hughes had been elected to the upper house of the Territorial Legislature, even serving as the President of the Council in 1872.

Appointed by the legislative assembly to the Capital Committee in 1883, Hughes not only played an important role in securing the new capital in present-day North Dakota, the new capitol building was also constructed under his supervision. Included in the commission’s resolution to place the new territorial capital in Bismarck was the appointment of Hughes to a Building Committee given the charge of working with the architects and any other actions necessary to secure plans for the building.

Hughes relocated to Bismarck in 1883, where he remained for sixteen years. He then moved to Fargo and became involved in the manufacture and sale of electrical power. Alexander Hughes finally retired to Minneapolis where he passed away on November 24, 1907.

The Hughes name played an important role in the development of North Dakota’s capital city, in no small part thanks to his deciding vote. The Hughes name also played a small role in the selection of South Dakota’s capital city. In 1880, the territorial governor authorized the formation of Hughes County, named for Alexander Hughes. Since Pierre was the only town in the county, it became the county seat. Ten year later, the citizens of Pierre, in Hughes County, successfully lobbied for the permanent location of the South Dakota state capital.

“Dakota Datebook” is a radio series from Prairie Public in partnership with the State Historical Society of North Dakota and with funding from Humanities North Dakota.