B-52s at Minot Air Force Base

By LEEWANA THOMAS

July 17 — Although there is disagreement about the exact date, it was around this time in July 1961 that the first B-52 bomber arrived at Minot Air Force Base. It was ironically nicknamed the “Peace Persuader.”

((According to The Minot Daily News files, the first B-52s arrived at Minot Air Force Base on July 16, 1961.)

The “Peace Persuader’s” arrival in Minot marked a huge growth in the base’s scope of operations. So, they wanted to show off. In January of 1962, a B-52 crew from Minot flew from Okinawa, Japan to Torrejon, Spain, in 21 hours and 53 minutes. Afterwards, President Kennedy invited the Minot crew to Washington to give his personal congratulations.

Ball Game

By LEEWANA THOMAS

July 18 — There’s nothing like a July night spent eating peanuts and Cracker Jack, root root rooting for the home team. Watching baseball is a favorite pastime for millions across America. North Dakota may not have a major league team, but its baseball history is filled with unique events. Teams were integrated long before the Major Leagues, and it was done with little trouble. And it’s the home state of Roger Maris, who broke Babe Ruth’s home run record. And we’ve been creating world records for a long time.

On today’s date in 1891, spectators in Devil’s Lake witnessed a very unusual ballgame between Grand Forks and Fargo. It had to go into extra innings…sixteen extra innings to be exact, and if you’ve done the math, then you already realize that the game was twenty-five innings long. And that’s not all. The newspaper in Grand Forks reported the next day that the play by both teams was “unusually fine,” and that’s because neither team allowed a run. That’s right, the game went on for twenty-five innings and neither team ever scored. It was forced to end after four hours because players had to catch their trains home.

The teams were also mirror images of each other as far as plays go: both pitchers struck out eighteen players, one second basemen had nineteen chances without an error and the other was seventeen out of eighteen. There was only one fly ball to the outfield that fell for a hit the entire game. It was, as the newspaper reported the next day, a “Phenomenal Game,” setting the world record for the most innings without any runs.

Even though there wasn’t a league in 1891, North Dakota’s baseball teams were semi-professional, part of a small group of teams from North Dakota and Minnesota that played benefit games for local charities and brought baseball to small communities that loved to come out and watch.

Married Men

in WWII

By JIM DAVIS

July 19 — On September 16, 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt implemented the first peacetime draft in history, known as the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940. The following year, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, the United States was at war. Thousands of young men rushed to the recruitment centers and joined the Armed Forces, but after the excitement wore off and they realized this would be a long and bloody involvement, enlistment fell well below the demand.

All men between the ages of 18 and 64 were required to register for the draft, but married men were exempt from military service. Many a man chose to march down the aisle rather than march for Uncle Sam, enough so that Brigadier General Heber L. Edwards, state Selective Service director, felt a need to clarify the status of eligible married men on this date in 1942.

The regulation stated, “Such married status must have been acquired prior to December 8, 1941, and at a time when the registrant’s selection was not imminent.” So, any man married after the bombing of Pearl Harbor was eligible for military service.

However, General Edwards pointed out that the word “imminent” was the key to understanding the draft status for married men. Although December 8, 1941, was the only date mentioned in the draft regulation, the national appeals board declared that the selection of any man for military service was imminent as soon as they registered for the draft back in 1940, even though the United States was not yet at war.

The Selective Service Board did make two exceptions for men who married after September of 1940. If a child had been born to this union prior to December 8, 1941, then the man would be exempted from the draft. The second exception was if the man had been given a 4F Classification, meaning he was unfit for military service – his induction into military service was not imminent and therefore his marital status exempted him from the draft even if the disability was corrected.

So, for those who chose to marry, not for love but for war, they may have soon found themselves battling on two fronts. Hopefully they survived both and lived happily ever after.

Bonanza Farmer Charles W. Buttz

By STEVE HOFFBECK

July 20 — Bonanza farms brought great publicity to Dakota Territory from 1874 through 1880. The large-scale wheat farms attracted investors eager to make their fortunes. The names of Bonanza farmers echo through Dakota’s history, including the Grandin Brothers of Pennsylvania; the Carrington Brothers from Ohio; the Cooper Brothers of Chicago; and Richard Sykes from England.

These men left their imprint on North Dakota by the towns they gave their name – Grandin, Carrington, Cooperstown and Sykeston – names rich in history with syllables that roll off the tongue.

Yet there was another Bonanza farmer whose name was not as melodious as the others with a town name that could grate upon the sensibilities. The man was Charles W. Buttz, and he could have used his first name for the town – Charlestown. Instead, he called it Buttzville.

C.W. Buttz came from a long line of Buttzes. Born in Pennsylvania in 1837, he moved with his family to New Jersey, where his father, John Buttz, established a flour mill and the town of Buttzville, New Jersey.

C.W. grew up and studied law, but when the Civil War began in 1861, he became a cavalry officer, gaining glory and rising to the rank of Major. After the war, Buttz moved to Virginia where he became active in politics and soon relocated to South Carolina. Because he was a northerner and a Republican, Buttz was called a carpetbagger, a derisive name for those who came south during reconstruction. Nevertheless, in 1877 Buttz won a seat to the House of Representatives from South Carolina, a Democratic state, and he served one term.

In 1880, Buttz suffered a stroke and his doctor advised him to move to a drier climate. Buttz chose Fargo, where he opened a law office. Then, with his relatives David and John, he established the big “Buttz Bonanza Farm” on 36,000 acres in Ransom County in 1882. The brothers named the associated town Buttzville, to honor the family name and their old hometown.

C.W. was a farmer, lawyer and state legislator in North Dakota and also became a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., using his old Congressional connections. On this date in 1913, Charles W. Buttz died at the age of 75. His impressive tombstone in the Lisbon city cemetery lists his achievements. How many men in North Dakota ever made so much history – as a Civil War hero, a Carpetbagger, and as a Bonanza farmer?

As for his town, it faded away, for John moved West and David died in 1920. Today, all that remains of Buttzville is a lonely railway sign and a few ramshackle buildings five miles east of Lisbon.

Explosion

in Minot

By MERRY HELM

July 21 — A violent explosion rocked Minot on this day in 1947. People were thrown to the ground as far as two blocks away, and windows were shattered throughout a four-block radius.

The explosion occurred shortly before noon at the Westland Oil Company service station and bulk plant. It started with an undetermined detonation of gasoline holding tanks, which set off several more blasts nearby. Burning gasoline was hurled into the air, setting fire to nearby buildings. Ultimately, fire consumed four city blocks.

The Minot Daily News reported, “Gasoline from the exploding tanks poured in a fiery stream into the streets and down the bank into the Mouse River… People living along the Mouse River east of the 3rd St NE viaduct were evacuating household belongings as the debris-filled river boiled under the heat of the burning oil. Huge black columns of smoke rose from the river.”

Lester Dahlen, manager of the Bridgeman Creamery next door to the Oil Company, “described the explosion as literally lifting the building into the air.” Another witness claimed the explosion “resembled [his] idea of an atomic bomb.” Owners of the Dakota Hide and Fur Company “thought a truck hit the front of [their] building.” A Mandan Creamery employee “said she saw the flame bursting like a volcano from the burning tank.” A farmer 18 miles south of town said he saw the flames from his farmyard. Smoke from the disaster was visible up to 100 miles away.

Onlookers ran to the scene in hopes of aiding victims, while business owners scrambled to account for their employees. Dozens of vehicles were either driven or pushed away from the area to prevent further detonations. While two large tanks burned out of control, the fire department poured a steady stream of water onto other nearby fuel tanks.

Firemen were working with a low water supply due to a breakdown in one of the city’s wells, and “city officials pleaded with residents of the city to be extremely careful in their consumption of water.” Luckily, there was very little wind that day, and the defense strategy worked.

Hospitals readied themselves for patients at the first sounds of the explosion. Several people were rushed into the emergency rooms and treated for burns, many very serious. Those who were mortally wounded included employees of the surrounding businesses and one fireman – all suffering burns over 90-100% of their bodies.

In the following days, newspapers released eyewitness accounts citing a visible fuel leak as the cause of the disaster, but all reports were later retracted. Several hypotheses were set forward to explain the explosion, including crowded storage tanks and pumping negligence. But, R. J. Coughlin, president of Westland Oil Company, claimed the “pumps were ‘dead’ at the time of the explosion.” He provided records of the week’s transactions showing the storage tanks could each hold an additional 500 gallons of fuel. After finishing his own investigation, the president cited “no explanation” for the explosion.

Government officials also launched an investigation, but after interviewing 13 witnesses, Assistant State’s Attorney B. A. Dickinson found “no cause established and no grounds for criminal prosecution.”

The explosion killed five people, destroyed nine businesses and caused nearly a million dollars in damages. With no cause to point to, Deputy Fire Marshal H. R. Handtmann hoped it would at least increase public awareness concerning the need for caution at gas stations and bulk plants.

“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.