Five thousand Indians of the Sioux nation gathered in 1888 for discussions on a treaty that would open up land in the Standing Rock reservation for non-native settlement. The government was represented by three commissioners who needed three-quarters of all adult Lakota males to approve the treaty. Today marked the eleventh day of discussions, and the commissioners had yet to gather a single signature.
Before the Garrison Dam was built, the Missouri was a wily river. Its greedy undercurrents had proven treacherous on several occasions. On this date in 1955, painter Donald Ryland of New Town was working 135 feet above the river on the Four Bears Bridge when he lost his balance reaching for a paint stick. He managed to grab a steel beam, but before others could reach him, he lost his grip and fell into the rising reservoir.
2/13/2007: This day in 1926 started out with much excitement for the sisters of Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Dickinson. An expansion had just been completed, and upon the sisters’ inspection, especially of the woodwork in the new chapel, the new addition was deemed satisfactory.
5/10/2007: Men generally aren’t commended for trying to sneak a peak up a woman’s skirt, but one North Dakotan helped in a historic capture by doing so. That North Dakotan’s name was Arne Ranum, a young Norwegian man and Civil War soldier.
6/8/2007: When the Europeans first discovered America, some of the first immigrants of the area were missionaries who came to spread the word of God to the native inhabitants. While the Catholic priests and missionaries were more prominent in the southern part of the United States and into Mexico, missionaries were active among the natives on the Northern plains. Their efforts included not only converting the Native Americans to Christianity, but also establishing monasteries for the men and women. On this day in 1889, the New York Freeman’s Journal and Catholic Register reported on Josephine Crowfeather as the first full-blood Sioux to enter the Benedictine Novitiate.