Mott Defenders

By JAYME JOB

Aug. 7 — The small town of Mott was in general alarm on this day in 1916. One of their number had just made a confession to the murder of a local farmer, and it was being circulated that a number of men, both lynchers and bailers, were headed to Mott in droves with the purpose of either killing or freeing their prisoner.

The whole affair started the week before, when authorities found the body of farmer Louis H. Larson. Police found the man’s skull crushed in, and his hands and feet bound together. Upon investigation they found that local immigrant Frank Luchow had been the last man seen with Larson. Luchow, a Polish immigrant and active IWW member, went by Frank Lang in these parts. His activities with the radical Industrial Workers of the World were infamous in Chicago.

Police found and arrested Lang in Dickinson in connection with the murder. They placed the suspect in the Mott jail, but reports of his confinement spread across the area and caused quite a stir. Area farmers and homesteaders hoped to mob the jail and take Lang for themselves in order to administer their own form of frontier justice; several local IWW members made a proclamation to the rest of the country’s members to free Lang from the small cell.

Citizens of Mott could only arm themselves and wait, hoping that justice would have a chance of its own. Dozens of Mott men surrounded the prison, and others were placed at various lookout spots throughout the town. The entire city waited in vigilance. Finally, late in the night, a band of IWW members entered the city. The union members carried knives and approached the prison.

A great scuffle ensued, and two of the “wobblers” were seriously wounded. The rest of the group disbanded, and the Mott citizens applauded themselves. Their prisoner remained in his cell throughout the night and gave a complete confession in the morning. He was taken to Dickinson to await prosecution. It was learned that a group of a hundred farmers had met in Regent to form a lynching mob that evening, but that the heavy rains proved too much for the men, and they had retired to their homes.

Dustin Hoffman, Director

By MERRY HELM

Aug. 8 — The Fargo Moorhead Community Theatre staged its first production, My Sister Aileen, in 1946, and until getting permanent facilities in 1967, they staged their shows wherever they could. In 1963, an East Coast actor was hired to direct two of their plays, at least one of which was produced in the Red River Playhouse.

In 2002, when he was interviewed by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune at the Toronto Film Festival, he realized the paper’s proximity to North Dakota. “Can I tell you a story?” he asked the reporter. “I was a young, unemployed actor living in New York City. This was back in the ’50s. Couldn’t get a job, even waiting tables. I went up to the Equity office – you know, the (stage actors’) union office – to see if there was anything. And one week there was. There was a note saying that the Fargo-Moorhead Community Theater (sic) needed an artistic director. I applied, and I got the job. You know Fargo? I love it.”

He was Dustin Hoffman, who four years later performed his break-out role in the hit movie, “The Graduate.” Today is his birthday.

Dirty Deception

By JAYME JOB

Aug. 9 — A poor Fargo morning woke up to find herself very much deceived on this day in 1903. The woman, Mrs. Bernblott, had been the cause of some stir in the city of Fargo in recent weeks, but it had been hoped that her problems had been alleviated and that she would live happily ever after after all. But, as she awoke on that morning, she found her situation anything but a happy one.

Mrs. Bernblott married Mr. Louis Bernblott in Fargo three years earlier, in 1900. In November of 1902, Mrs. Bernblott gave birth to the couple’s first child. The following February, Mr. Bernblott sent his wife to live with her relatives in Minneapolis, claiming various reasons for the relocation. Mrs. Bernblott, having every confidence in her husband, happily made the move.

After moving, though, the woman received absolutely no word from her husband, despite repeated attempts on her part. He sent no funds to support his young family either, and it was for this reason that Mrs. Bernblott made the long trip back to Fargo in July.

The woman went into Justice Ryan’s courtroom and swore out a warrant to have her husband arraigned, claiming that he had failed to provide for his young child. She claimed that she wanted nothing for herself, but only for the raising of her child.

On August 8, Mr. Bernblott appeared in court, along with Mrs. Bernblott and her family. During the short trial, a supposed reconciliation was made between the husband and wife. Mr. Bernblott “promised to take care of his wife and babe in the future, and stated that he would take them to a farm which he had recently purchased in the western part of the state.” Mrs. Bernblott accepted his apologies, and it seemed a happy ending to the whole affair.

The following morning, however, Mrs. Bernblott awoke to find her husband missing; supposedly he had left in the early hours of the morning for the east, and had taken a woman from the city along with him. The man had “evidently made the promises to avoid prosecution, believing it to be the quickest and easiest way out of trouble.”

Old Fargo Dump

By LEEWANA THOMAS

Aug. 10 — Nobody likes to think about their garbage. But the fact is, each year Americans throw away enough paper and plastic cups, forks, and spoons to circle the equator 300 times. So, there are a lot of stories, many of them untold, about land once part of a vast wilderness that now serves instead as a place for our junk. And eventually, these landfills get full and we start over.

So goes the story of the original Fargo Dump. If you’re ever driving around North Fargo, keep in mind that parts of it used to be stacked high with the garbage of pioneers and flappers alike, until clever engineers and street workers found a way to make room for the next generation’s trash.

The original city dump, containing nearly 40 years of accumulated garbage, stood house-high in an area covering almost two city blocks in North Fargo. But after it was abandoned in 1929, it was left to sit, changing from organic matter into a residue of rust, glass, and ashes. So, engineers used it in a way that probably wouldn’t be allowed today: as street bedding.

A large stretch of First Avenue North between Eighteenth and Twenty-seventh Streets is footed on material from the original dump, as are many other parts of town. In fact, street workers soon became dependent on the garbage. On this date in 1949, the Fargo Forum was asking questions and even reminiscing about the old dump, while wondering what the city was going to do when it ran out of the valuable material the dump provided.

And as the last of the trash was finally cleared away, the area of North Fargo that used to be the dump was declared available for building. Of course, since then, North Dakota’s waste regulations have evolved, and Fargo has operated landfills with stricter rules.

But before all of this, in the times of the frontier, the area where the dump would be located was a rendezvous for duck hunters, along with a swimming, rowing, and sailing area. The settlers then had no idea their community would soon be creating massive amounts of waste – waste that would later help “pave” the way to progress.

Golden Marguerite

By LEEWANA THOMAS

Aug. 11 — In this week in 1932, North Dakota lost a great champion. Her name was Marguerite – Golden Marguerite – and she was truly a “Gold Medal Cow.” In 1921, she produced 977.7 pounds of butter fat in one year, a record not beaten until 1969.

To celebrate her achievements and the fame she brought to North Dakota, it was decided that she should be buried on the NDSU campus, in front of the dairy building. And so she was, and her gravesite was marked with a commemorative bronze plaque attached to a boulder…or was it? Was Golden Marguerite really buried where we think she was? Nobody may know the real answer, but the stories surrounding this cow have become the stuff of folklore.

We know for sure that Marguerite was born on September 22, 1914, and died on this date, August 12, 1932. She was owned by Samuel F. Crabbe, who besides having his own dairy farm did a lot of work with the Agricultural College (now North Dakota State University).

We know she produced a record-breaking amount of butter, but when she died, our concrete evidence ends, and the folklore begins. Her plaque was originally placed in front of the dairy building, but it was later placed by the Sheperd Livestock Arena, and since then there have been strange stories. Some students report feelings of a paranormal presence, claiming they heard a ghostly call that sounds strangely like “mooooo!”

But whether or not the ghost of a dairy cow wanders the NDSU campus mooing at unsuspecting students, Marguerite’s remains spark their own debate. There is no recorded mention of the prize cow’s burial until 1948, which leaves a time lapse of 16 years for a legend to develop. There’s a picture in the NDSU archives of a hole in the ground labeled “Noble’s Golden Marguerite–Grave,” but this is hardly incontestable proof.

Today, some people want to bring her monument back to where she was supposedly buried, but others argue that her remains may not even be there. There has been talk of using archeological remote sensor equipment, but electricity from nearby buildings would likely ruin the signals. It seems the only solution would be to excavate. We may never know the truth about Golden Marguerite, but one thing is sure: she’s a legendary part of NDSU history.

“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.