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Newspaper Archive of
Golden Valley News
Beach, North Dakota
October 28, 1943     Golden Valley News
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October 28, 1943
 
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PAGE TWO I I i I Cattle Shipments Recall Old Days B.V S. F. HALLIBURTON (courtesy Dickinson Press) Shipments of cattle to market this fall reminded Monroe Stone, proprietor of the Golden Valley Hotel, of old times, when as many ms eight to ten trains a day would be loaded and shipped from Eland. four miles from Dickinson. A train usually consisted of twenty cars, and the cars, smaller than than otherwise. One blizzard fol- lowed another, The cattle, hardy as they were: c~ldn't endure such weather and practically all of the herds perished. One herd of 5000 steers, branded 13, crossed the tracks that winter at Belfield, Mr. Stone recalled. Not one live "critter" of the herd was ever seen again. Operators Recover I those used now, carried 20 to 22[ As stiff a blow as that was tot head of cattle each. i the cattle business, by 1888, twoI Eland and Wlbaux were the two lyears later, the operators weret most important shipping points at l°n their feet again. Wibaux, for l that time, Mr. Stone recalled. Be_I instance, went back to France to! fore shipping time. the big opera- borrow money for a new start. It l tors would have roundups that was after his return that the Men- functioned as a sort of continuous tuna town was named for him. He loo'- The cattle on one side of started over with some 30,000 head :-~'" " ......... u- of steers and the Berry-Boyce out-! ~ne rallroaa WOUlO ve rounae~ P~, '. '. '. . I and shipped from Eland Then tn~ naa avout the same numoer "" ~'- 1 no'" th rail [CATTLE SHIPMENTS GAL. TWO ~le risers WOU £I I IIOW ~ e - ' road down the other side, r~und-I- One thing Mr. Stone :al~zde ;::I ing up the cattle .,to be shipped nara ~or t~eOsPmd;O: ?:e~ were no I from Wibaux. some of the largJr ~na~ n ~nos aay~. _ _! " - -h --e -- e t ~ences 'me ~amanos were no~ opera~ors, sucn as ~ e ~ rry-~oyc " ............ I • even surveyeu unul I~z. r~o~oay Cattle Co. would shlp from 3000 ......... ......... a--I f__ _ one~OWnea tuna, ou~ every omer section ~O ~,UtYO lleafi oI c ~i~ e roiIl - ~, ~ .... ~.. ~, ........... , ,, +!belonged to the Northern Pacific, ~'~ ac'a~:~2r~u~intoa lo~ding a la~d :a~tI: :°i~es continued to chu • .... v rslthrJ afar Mr. stone S~eers usua41y aoou~ n e yea I ' said. That was the climax of a old when they were shipped, brought $30 to $35 a head on the market. Even at that price, how- ever, they were money makers, for the cattle were trailed up from Texas, where they were bought for about $1~ a head, Mr. Stone ex- plained. They were Texas long- horns, rough, tough, and able to survive the rigors of winter on the range. Fattened Before Fall After being quarantined 60 days on account of Texas fever, the cattle were trailed to western North Dakota, which was not a state then, and turned loose on the range, When they arrived in July they were thin. but before winter set in they would fatten up enough to go through the winter. Usually they were two-year-olds when they were brought in and were kept about three years. Each fall, the c~ttle men rounded up the stock on the prairies and turned them into the Badlands, where they had greater prot~cUon from winter weather. After the roundup, line riders were put on the east side of the Bad~nds to keep the cattle from drtftlng out into the prairies again. The riders covered from 15 to 18 miles a flay. Mr. Stone remembered that in 1888, when his family lived near Belfleld, two line riders from Mule Springs, 15 miles north of Belfield, stopped st his home every other day. They were Joke Tormickel and a man named Chappell. Incidentally, Mr. Stone explained Mule Springs got its name from the fact that the Northern Pacific, building ~estward. wintered its mules at that pl~ce. Fearsome Winter The cattle business in the Bad- lands was in full sway in 1885, said Mr. Stone, and more herds were added in 1886. That winter. however, nearly finished tl~e cattle business. Practically all of the operators went out of business until 1~8, when the companies reorgan- ized or new ones started. In that historic year, 1886, a blizzard on Nov. 12 started winter. Cattle drifted clear down to the big Missouri, he said, because the line riders hadn't started. Even If they had been on the Job, they could not have prevented the drifting. On Dec. 20, a chinook, a south- west wind, settled the snow to 8 er 12 hlwhes, Rain fell and then froze. For the rest of the winter, series of dry years, when grass was short and the range was fed down. In addition, the pasture districts of Texas began breeding up cattle, so that it was no longer possible to buy longhorns for $12 a head. As the big outfits clc~ed out in 1897, the smaller ones got a1 firmer footing. Some of the cow-I boys who had been with the big outfits, started with small herds on their own. Among such men that Mr. Stone remembered were Wllks Rtchards, who lives northeast of Dickinson, and John I~key, who lives 70 miles from Bes2.h on the Little Missouri. I~ Water Killed CLtUe Returning in memory to the fear- ful winter of 1886, Mr. Stone said that the big companies were hard° est hit becattse they depended eno tirely upon the range. He said his people, and some of the other small operators cut wild hay and fed their stock, but even then they lost ~s mu~ as half. After a blizzard, when the stock would have to be kept in the shed_s, they would be turned out and would drink quantities of ice cold wa~er. In those days, such a thing as a tank heater was unheard of. The cold water would cause the ca:~e toI chill. Mr. Stone said you d see their heads droop and water beginI to run out of their mouths. In a l few hours they would be deatL In those days, the shipping sea-I son was from July 15 to Nov. 1.: All the cattle were sent by fast! freight to Chicago, going though in a little more than 24 hours, without ,feed or water. Mr. Stone THE GOLDEN VAI,I,EY NE • CATTLE BEING :LOADED Some of the 777 cattle are shown above as they were being loaded in~n a car ar Eland. W. J. (Bill* Follis. for 14 years foreman for the Berry-Boyce Co. which ran the 777 cattle said that these ca:tie probably came frorn Arizona. The company sl:ipped 6500 hesd o~ s:~rs at, c:ne time that year. loading was quite a job, Mr. Follis recalled• but oP.e time (]us S~reeter. gene:'~l manager, challenged them to see how fast th'~'y could load a train, and they finished ~he job. 25 cars with 23 steers each, in 45 minutes. The train above was the last to be loaded with, 777 cattle. The locomotive, hardly more than a toy in comparison with those on the Northern Pacific today, was used at Eland to load the train and take it to Dickinson, where another locomotive took over. A train carried 25 cars, and the Berry-Boyce last shipment consisted of 13 trains. Some of them went to Chicago, some to Kansas City and some to Sioux City, Ia. As the shipper had to pay freight on 24,000 pounds on each car, the companies tried to load as near that amount as possible. The 777 cattle weighed a little better than 1200 pounds, so that. 23 to a car were loaded. When he was flooded out in 1854, Jerry Stone retU~rned to the East] through Central America. Life ] there was too tame, however, and] in 1860 he came by train to St. Paul, and from there by ox team to Osakis. Minn. To escape an Indian massacre, the family went to St. Cloud, Minn. in 1863. Twenty-two years later the family came to Belfleld. They chose that place because of Mon Stone's father, Frank Stone, who had freighted from Bismarck to the Black Hills on a 30-day Journey fraught with constant dan- ger from Indian attack. After the railroad was extended west, Frank Stone came to Belfield in 1881 and continued to freight from there to the Black Hills. The Belfield that Mr. Stone knew when the family first moved a mile eas~ of there was little more than a tent town, he recalled. Later, hands with her, he said, '~Mrs. Roberts, I often think of that good buttermilk you used to give me." Mr. Stone worked with the 77"/ outfit and later with the HA when John Armstrong ran it. He also was with the OX outfit when Joe Blue was manager. Talking of the old days, Mr. Stone said that the proprietors of the Dickinson Mercantile once told him they had done $100,000 credit business through the season, but after shipping only $800 in out- standing bills remained on the books. On the other hand, life had its hardships and sickness was one of them, for Dr. V. H. Stlckney was the only doctor at that time and he often had to go 109 miles to visit a patient• Mr. Stone recalled that Dr. Stickney had a horse named Barney, who could make a 100-mile trip in a day. For years, he said, Dr. Stickney had a $500 standing offer out for a horse that would match Barney. ! Barney, however, was incurably/~ baulky. Dr. Stickney would tie upI the horse while he was harnessing him to the light buggy he used. When the doctor was in the buggy, ready to go, Mrs. Stlckney would come out, release the horse, Bar- ney would lunge forward and the trip was started. One time, Barney was slow to start, Dr. Stickney applied the whip, the horse reared up, fell over backwards and broke his own neck. Talking of Indian attacks in the early days, Mr. Stone said that he1 never experienced one but tliat around Fort Yates at one ttme l some 4000 Indians were ready for ]an uprising. The. slaying of Sit-i I ting Bull ended the disturbance,I I Mr. Stone recalled, t "When I think of wars like the one we are in now," Mr. Stone de- clared, "it makes me think of the Indian fighting. At the very time the soldiers were trying to quiet the Indians, other people were sell- ing them guns and ammunition. The Indians were every bit as well armed as the white men. That makes me think of the United States selling scrap iron to Japan, ~to be used against our own men." III said it was surprising how little the its hotel, the Riverside. was cut shrinkage was. Later, he said, ~in two and moved to Dickinson, the Humane Society s~epped in toI where Charile Klinefelter used it prever, t such~'abuse" and succeeded for a residence. Because the Stone place was halfway between Dick- inson and Medora, it was a con- venient stopping place and more often than not they had company, [sometimes as .many as a dozen extras sitting down to the table. Among such company, Theodore f Roosevelt was a frequent guest. Mr. Stone said that Roosevelt was a general favorite and a most gen- ial man. After he was president, he stopped off in Medora and went over to where a dance was in pro- gress. He surprised everyone by remembering so many people and by his ability to call them by name. Remembers Old Friends When Roosevelt spied Mrs. Mar- garet Roberts, late of Dickinson, sitting across the room, he ex- claimed, "Well, if there isn't Mrs. Roberts!" ~oing over to shake in forcing the operators to unload at Jamestown, keep the stock the~e eight hours, sometimes standing in mud 'half way up to their knees and hunched up in a cold rain or sleet. Range cattle would not eat the hay provided for ~them. In his opinion, the change was not a wise nor a humane one. Freighted to mack Hills The Stone family came with the earliest of the frontiersmen in this section. Mr. Stone's grand- father, Jerry Stone, born in Provl- dence, R. I., in 180~. was one of eight children. All the others were satisfied to remain there all their lives, but he broke away to go to California. He sailed around Cape Horn on a 199-day Journey, to set- until late in March, temperatures tie in Sacramento, where he start- were more often 45 degrees below ed a stor$ and blacksmith shop. , was looking on from the LAST SHIPMENT OF 777 CATTLE YOU OWE TO YOURSELF- You bet you do . . . yoh've been hard all summer and fall . . . Now you take a vacation trip to Fargo and nose away from the grindstone for a litt And then while you're here you about a job that will glv? you a hardship and a maximum of winter. See us here at the Powers-- job for you that can use whatever al~titude you have. HOTEL P0 S FARGO, NO/~AKOTA / Go a Trading Co. // Carries A Complete Line of / General Hardware Gilt Edge Paints and Varnishes dOLV . Bert Covert, Manager NORTH DAKOTA ~ wlv d~kt d be ~m~ ev~y ~ m~mm ~at 1J~0 m~~ m ~ A. Your ear lm~d~ marly 1 I~dkm of wat~ i~ ~aea ef 8M behind. Short-ma drivim~ f~k to ez~l tU tl~ watez. 8ome t~ts into the erankcam and mtamtaatee aay oil-especially in cooland odd wmtlar. e ero s your mudest-on.the,.lmttm, y olll ~m for motor oil selection ~/s fall i~--~e that ba~k~, pmb~ that en~ne, s~ch th~se gas ~upons. Change to Standard's famous Iso.Vis 10 W, the fastest starting, easiest-on.the battery 10 W motor oil you can buy. At today~ reduced speeds, oil consumption is greatly reduced, but 5m~/es are o/tier. Under rationed driving, they recharge lese, run down faster. To.heavy oil battery drag, endangom the motor when starting cold, wastes ~solin~ I~o-V'm I0 W given instant lul:a,'ication~ yet stays tough mz~ heat--gtvea full engine protection. Get it today. And make an early appointment with your Standani On Dealer for complete winter-conditionin~ ... weekday~ if you ran, • ""'"'"" ...... 4 • $~~~d~'.~OW~.~ _,=_. .....