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Bottineau County Tornadoes
of 1911
By BEN LUNDQUIST
Aug. 21 -- On this date in 1911, the citizens of Antler, Sherwood, Westhope and the surrounding communities were calculating their losses after a series of deadly tornadoes. Downed wires made the news of casualties and losses slow to spread. Speculation and miscommunication led to widely differing tallies, as well as cases of mistaken identity. Martin Fryberg, a young farmer and a survivor of the storm, was reported dead in some dispatches, while purportedly only injured in others.
In the end, it was found that four area residents had been killed, while 20 or so had been injured. Two of those killed were at the Manning Grove picnic area just outside of Antler. Families were spending a leisurely Sunday afternoon in the grove when they were caught off-guard by the violent weather. As the tornado enveloped the park, townspeople scurried to take refuge in the narrow pavilion and among the trees. The storm uprooted the entire grove, leaving the dead and injured strewn about the grounds.
A total of six cyclones struck Bottineau County. Another of the victims was farmer Elmer Carlson's three-year-old daughter, Margaret, who perished when the winds tossed aside the family home and outbuildings, located along Cutbank Creek, just outside of Westhope. The winds demolished many houses, barns, and granaries. The storm also took its toll on livestock, as eight horses were killed at the Smith farm near Antler.
The Antler tornado was photographed by several townspeople, and has since been categorized as an F5 - the most severe and damaging breed of tornado - based on the photos and firsthand accounts.
Catastrophes like the Bottineau County Tornadoes of 1911 eventually led to the development of modern warning systems and weather forecasting technologies. In the early 1900s, though, North Dakotans relied only on nonscientific means to interpret weather patterns. However, as we all know, weather on the plains can be unpredictable to say the least. It would be several decades until Civil Defense sirens and other warnings would be implemented to alert locals of extreme weather. Even then, it wasn't until the 1960s and 70s that meteorologists began to use radar, which took several decades more to evolve into its current form.
Paul Bunyan
By KAREN HORSLEY
Aug. 22 -- Have you wondered why North Dakota has so few trees? According to legend, Paul Bunyan and Babe, his big blue ox, wandered west from his logging camp in Minnesota one day. He tied his huge ax to the end of a long rope and swung it around in circles, single-handedly logging off acres of forest in just a few minutes. Then Paul took a two-ton maul and pounded every stump into the ground, thus preparing the land for bountiful wheat fields.
No one knows how many years Paul Bunyan stories such as these had been told in logging camps across the country, but this one first appeared in print in the Duluth, Minnesota, News Tribune in August1904.
Gallivanting Grandma
By SARAH WALKER
Aug. 23, -- A recent study done by Transportation for America projects that in a few years, more than 15.5 million Americans age 65 and older will live in communities where public transportation service is poor or non-existent. As the population ages, getting from point A to point B can become more difficult. But a lack of transportation didn't stop one woman in 1952. Fern Woods, from Escondido, Calif., was a mother to twelve, and a grandmother 27 times over. She was described as neat, "silvery-haired and sunshiny." She was about 60 years old, and a widow.
Ms. Woods was a stay-at-home mother when her children were young, and after they were grown and gone, she decided to travel the world, declaring to herself, "I'll see this world before I die." So she began to hitchhike.
On this date in 1952, local newspapers reported on this "gallivanting grandma" who traveling through North Dakota. Woods carried a "wheelbarrow" with her, which she had welded together herself--a metal GI suitcase that had "new, rubber-tired, toy wagon wheels on it." Along with this, she carried a zippered bag and a war surplus pack. These items contained a collapsible camp stove and fuel, three different bedding rolls to go with whatever weather she experienced and allowed her to be self-reliant. She estimated that she only spent about 75 cents a day. The Dickinson newspaper published a photo of her posing with her little pack, standing just outside the city limits.
Woods loved sleeping outside and hitchhiking across the country, but she said she tried to avoid publicity--in part because of her children, who were embarrassed by their mother's antics. They wanted her to stay home and babysit, but Woods said, "I tell them that I love them all. But I sat up many a night worrying about them when they were small and then when they were out dancing when they got older. And now it's my turn and I enjoy hitchhiking. Been doing it for two years now in a god-fearing way."
Carnegie
By SARAH WALKER
Aug. 24 -- Faithful followers of Dakota Datebook may remember that several libraries funded by Andrew Carnegie were established in North Dakota. Some questioned the manner behind his money-making prowess or his reputation as a ruthless businessman, but Andrew Carnegie nonetheless founded 2,509 libraries throughout the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. Of these, 1,679 were built in the U.S., and around eleven were built in North Dakota. Over the years, some have been demolished or remodeled, but some still stand today. Carnegie spent more than $55 million on libraries alone.
People who were interested in obtaining funding from Carnegie had to apply by filling out a form and returning it to James Bertram, Carnegie's secretary. These forms asked for information like population of the area, whether or not there was already a library there, the number of books, circulation, finances, and how the library was housed.
Carnegie died in early August of 1919, but the libraries he established lived on. In the aftermath of his death, the Grafton newspaper reminisced on their own library, one of a handful of Carnegie libraries built in North Dakota. According to their report, it also happened to be the first city in North Dakota to possess a free public library.
Women of the city raised money for a library fund as early as 1896, and a Public Library Association was formed the following year. Carnegie provided $10,000 to fund the building. In 1903, the city purchased five lots, and the library was erected the following year.
So on this date, after Carnegie's death, the library was able to report that it owned "7,000 well bound volumes on the shelves besides the current newspapers and the best magazines."
First Plane Fatality
By JAYME JOB
Aug. 25 -- North Dakota's earliest recorded airplane fatality occurred in this week in 1919, when a small plane went down near Sutton.
Piloted by Lt. Edward Axberg of Enderlin, the plane was flying at 1,200 feet before crashing into a field. Axberg and his friend, nineteen-year-old Brian Karr from Jamestown, had spent the afternoon performing stunts, but when they attempted a tail-spin, Axberg was unable to right the plane. The resulting crash broke Karr's legs and mangled much of his body; he died an hour and a half later, never regaining consciousness. Axberg survived, but was injured. With little understanding of planes at the time, the cause of the crash was blamed on "a failure of the machine to re-adjust itself rightly."
"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.