Life changed drastically for Americans when the Spanish flu pandemic struck in 1918. Nearly one third of the world’s population became infected. The death toll is estimated as high as fifty million people. Almost seven hundred thousand Americans died. News reports from Spain were not subject to censorship like they were in the rest of Europe, so the rest of the world learned about the disease through Spanish reports. This led to its name as the \“Spanish flu.\”
W. H. Horton, owner of the Horton Motor Co., sold Cadillacs at his dealerships in Devils Lake and Fargo, distributing the cars all across the state and into eastern Montana. He was such a believer in the superiority of Cadillacs that he made an unusual offer in the spring of 1913. Horton challenged any owner or dealer of six-cylinder cars to race him from Fargo to Minot and back, with the winner getting $100. Horton would drive a four-cylinder stock Cadillac.
On this date in 1916, citizens of Fargo were reading about an attempted escape from the Cass County jail. According to the local papers, "Only the eternal vigilance of Sheriff John Ross and his force of deputies" prevented the escape from happening.
On this date in 1917 a call was put out to the women of Fargo to donate jars of jelly to the Fargo Day Nursery. Sadie Barrett, the superintendent of the nursery, proclaimed that the little children who spent their days at the nursery were sad to be without jelly and bread. Only the good women of Fargo could rectify this situation by donating a jar of homemade jelly. In fact, it was only through charitable donations from the people of Fargo that the day nursery even existed.
In the Roaring Twenties, dancing was a major form of entertainment. Local couples, young and old, “danced the night away” to the music of bands playing at such venues as