The story of America tells of only one state carved out of another during the Civil War – West Virginia – and in the mid-1800s, the flourishing riverside city of Wheeling found itself at the epicenter of that pivotal moment in U.S. history. A thriving economic base had been taking root in ...
One of the biggest days of the year for prospective deer hunters occurred Friday afternoon, May 8. It’s when the Game and Fish Department released the framework for the 2026 deer hunting season. This year’s deer gun season will open Nov. 6 at noon and runs through Nov. 22, as wildlife ...
We are rounding out the month of May already! Is anyone else wondering where the month went? May is the month for planting gardens. Somebody asked me just last week, “Have you planted your garden yet?” When I get asked this in mid-May, I tend to chuckle to myself before I give my spiel on ...
“I can’t believe this is real!” my husband exclaimed. “They use DNA to solve crime all the time,” I replied. I was corresponding online with a distant cousin who had matched my DNA profile. No crimes were involved, by the way. “No one would know that!” he said after she even recalled something about me. Several years ago, I bought DNA testing kits. I was excited to send in a saliva sample, but my husband was skeptical. He perked up when his results showed that he was more German than I was Norwegian. Later, as more people did the analysis, my profile was updated to ...
On the fourth page of his Villard Leader newspaper for Saturday, July 3, 1886, Richard Copeland wrote that the mail route from Villard to Washburn was “the first one established in this portion of Dakota and has been in operation four years. Robert Shaw of Washburn, now gone to his final home, brought the first mail to the Mouse River on August 8, 1882.” Mary Ann Barnes Williams gives the names of four other men who delivered the mail to Villard in the 1880s. They included Nels Martenson, Holbrook, J. W. McKnight and Harry Stroud. She recounts a somewhat unnerving experience that ...
When McHenry County was created in 1873, it was not as large as it is today. Its original boundaries went from Towner and Buffalo Lodge Lake in the north to Anamoose in the south, and from Orrin and Aylmer in the west to Velva in the east. This area had long been visited by Native Americans, who left signs of their presence there in the forms of several types of burials and myriads of tepee rings formed by circles of stones which indicated where the various tribes had had their camp sites. There were also a number of well used trails that were etched into the landscape, particularly ...
