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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~.~ _,=_. .....