Logan County Extension Records

Images of the Coteau

This document details research done at the North Dakota State University Archives. The records used are Cooperative Extension Annual Reports from Logan County, North Dakota. The aim of the research is to identify photographs in the report illustrating vital aspects of life in the Missouri Coteau region and to record information explicating the images. Links in the table below call up images of interest that have been scanned from the manuscript reports.

Most images, including all photographic images, are scanned at 600 dpi and saved as TIFs. Certain other images, mainly textual things, are scanned at 300 dpi and saved as PDFs. TIFs have been saved also as JPGs for reference and web use.

Thanks to NDSU Archives for making these records available for research.

1934-35	“Tri-County Picnic Held” The wheat and corn-hog boards of McIntosh, Emmons, and Logan counties had a meeting and decided to have a tri-county picnic at Beaver Lake Resort. The program included: 10:00 Kitten Ball for the kids 11:00 Horseshow pitching for the three counties 12:00 Lunch Hour 1:00 Band Concert 1:15 Talk by the Washington delegate (E.C. Krueger) 1:30 Talk by Dr. Walster of the Agricultural College 2:15 Talk by Mr. Alden, Washington representative 3:15 Kitten Ball game between Emmons & Logan County 3:15 Band Concert 4:00 Kitten Ball game between winner and McIntosh Co. 4:00 Races for the girls of the three counties 4:00 Tug of war between corn-hog men and wheat men 5:00 Band concert 9:00 Dance in the Burnstad Hall Attendance at the picnic exceeded 3000. There were bands fro, Gackle, Ashley, Zeeland, and Napoleon.
	Photo on p. 24, Dr. Walster speaks from truck at tri-county picnic
	“Drouth Continued into April” 1934 precipitation was 50% under normal in 1934, “and so distributed that much of it evaporated before it had settled into the ground sufficiently to do any crop benefit. . . . From January until April precipitation was extremely light in 1935 and people were rather skeptical about seeding. In the early part of April wind storms came up and dust blew as it did in 1934 and many farmers decided that they would not seed until sufficient moisture had come to assure at least a start of a crop.” When the rains started falling the weather continued cold and unfavorable and for this reason many farmers were much delayed in their seeding. . . . This of course retarded the growth of all grains and probably had much to do with the susceptibility to the rust infestation. . . . The growth of forage was almost tropical in the region through the latter part of June and early part of July. . . .
	Photo on p. 34 (bottom), [dust storm in Napoleon in early April]
	“Successful Year Completed” The county agent takes some pride in accomplishing the sheer volume of paperwork and correspondence entailed by the farm program. There were a total of 9328 individual letters written and a total of 18 circular letters prepared of which there was mailed out, 20,724 copies.
	Photo (top) on p. 62, Mail ready to go to the post office
1935-36	Photo (middle) on p. 51, Gackle 4-H Clubs / 1^st Yr. Clothing / Willing Workers
	“Colt Show” The annual colt show gave $120 in prizes, courtesy of the State Stallion Registration Board. Horsemen throughout the county generally, were very enthusiastic about the show and brought in truck loads of colds from various districts in the county to make the show a success. . . . Following the judging, a sale was held at which there were twelve pure bred horses and colts offered for sale of which one pair of mares was sold by John Rohrich at $800.00 and one pair by the Patterson Land Company for $600.00. Holding this sale of good horses directly following the horse show gave a good demonstration of what good breeding, care and management of horses will do on price as compared with the ordinary farm run. Following the sale a parade was held of all the ribbon colts together with their sires, headed by a fine team of pure bred mares hitched to a platform wagon.
	Photo on p. 70, A Purebred Belgian Sire Owned by Peter Hoirup, Gackle, N. Dak.
1938-39	“Irrigation” Through cooperation with the Extension Irrigation Engineer, W.H. Farmer, various types of irrigation plants were used in the production of gardens. There were some forty gardens in the vicinity of Napoleon alone that were irrigated and the irrigation plants consisted of using an ordinary pump, pumping the water into barrels then carrying it to the garden with a sprinkling can, on through all the stages to a 1200 gallon electric pump with pipes and hose outlets all through the garden. Methods of providing moisture to the garden included: · Snow fence to trap snow · Hand pump and hand-carrying to the garden · Windmill with an overflow tank that is carried to the garden · Windmill with elevated tank to provide pressure for irrigation · Pumps powered by gasoline or electricity · Overflow from a AAA dam (used by one man) Irrigation in all gardens, regardless of the method used, showed a marked improvement in the garden over the dry land methods. . . . This project has worked out so successfully and has coordinated so well with the other work done in the county that educational work has already been started relative to the fertilization, cultivation and snow trapping of gardens for the coming season.
	Photo on p. 22 (bottom), Tower Tank Irrigation Plants for Gardens
	The Busy Bees 4-H Club of Napoleon is the oldest club in the county, membership fourteen, led by Mrs. H.A. McNutt. For a portion of their recreation, the girls as a club went to Beaver Lake Park and at Mr. Arntz’s cottage prepared their breakfast and served it and had a forenoon’s outing at the lake. Note: judging by surnames, this was a mixed group, Anglo, German-Russian, and Norwegian.
	Photo (top right) on p. 28, Breakfast at Beaver Lake State Park / At the monument
1939-40	Photo (left) on p. 11, Regner Family Eats Melons Every Year
	Photo (top) on p. 12, This windmill tower tank furnishes water for ¼ block of garden.
	Photo (bottom) on p. 12, Garden Irrigation—Over-flow from stock tank.
1947-48	“Weed Control” The report contains an extension section on weed control work. The recommended remedy for quack-grass is still thorough cultivation. As for other methods, Through the cooperation of the local Druggist we aided farmers locate sources of Sodium Chlorate. We don’t care to handle it here at the office, but have been taking orders from farmers for the local dealer or have been referring them directly to the dealer. . . . May 14, the Agent attended a Weed Meeting at Steele, this meeting was conducted by Russell Widdiefield, Extension Agronomist, and Seb. Vogel, from the Extension Agricultural Engineering Department. The purpose of the meeting being to acquaint County Agents with the operation of spraying machinery. This Agent purchased a 16 ½ foot boom and planned to hold a demonstration using a home made sprayer. Dealers in the county have been reluctant to handle spraying equipment and farmers should be at least acquainted with the use of 2.4.D. This was a bad spring for the use of 2-4-D in this area due to the extreme dry weather during the late spring. The grain was in various stages of growth due to the lack of moisture and could easily be burned. Weeds on the other hand were slow growing and rather difficult to kill. The Erbele brothers north of Lehr, however, had mustard in the wheat so bad “they said they didn’t care if the grain became burned or not.” So there was the place for a test of a homemade sprayer.
	Photo (top) on p. 18, Home-Made Weed Sprayer / Erbele Brothers Farm
	“Farm Sewer and Water Systems” The Agent started out a program on the installation of farm sewage disposal systems last summer. . . . The program didn’t catch on to well last year as we could not secure the services of a custom machine to the evacuating. Farmers wanted their houses modern, but didn’t like all the hard digging necessary to install a system. . . . On June 29, G.C. Brauer of Edgeley, who operated a custom ditching machine came into the county. On June 30 he started work at the Hunkler Ranch. Mr. Brauer had experience with the type of installation recommended by the Extension Service and cooperated fully with the Agent. The agent meanwhile visited with lumber-yard operators about supplying forms. Mr. Brauer got started rather late in the season and farmers soon were busy in the hay fields. He then moved his unit into the towns of Gackle, Napoleon, Fredonia, and Lehr where he could work while farmers were busy with haying and harvesting. This fall he again worked on farm installations. During the time he worked on farms, during the early summer, and this fall, he installed twenty-four farm systems through-out the county.
	Photo on p. 22, G.C. Brauer Excavuting Unit / Howard Hunkler Ranch
1950-51	This report devotes considerable attention to the expansion of telephone service in the county. Matters of the Rural Telephone program were discussed at a 2:00 P.M. meeting in the court house, December 15. Chester Graham was guest speaker. Township maps were filled in to show location of present telephone lines and farm locations. This mass meeting was held before sign-ups for the Rural Telephone program were scheduled in each township. NAPOLEON HAS ONLY EIGHT RURAL PHONES Telephone directories were recently issued for towns in this part of the state. . . . At Napoleon there are 193 town phones and 8 rural, a total of 201. Ashley has 256 town and 19 rural, total of 275. In addition, Ashley has 35 rural customers who own their own lines and connect with the Ashley switchboard. Wishek lists 317 town and 108 rural, a total of 425, to take a big lead over other town in this area. IN addition, Wishek has ten rural customers who own their own line. Lehr has 70 phones. Lehr has 38 rural customers who own their own line and use the Lehr switchboard. You can have a telephone if you and your neighbors sign up was the keynote John Viken, secretary of the Dickey Mutual Aid Rural Telephone, stressed at the Lehr meeting. Ranges 67, 68, and 69 are included in the present rural telephone coop. Farmers living in other ranges in Logan county are not included in their plans. The Dickey telephone coop plans to start building lines this summer. . . . 1500 farmers are already members of the Dickey coop. Ellendale – The Dickey Rural Telephone Mutual Aid corporation has begun mapping the area where rural telephone lines will be installed, following approval from Washington of a loan to the co-operative organization. . . . The area to be covered includes primarily Dickey, Sargent, Ransom, LaMoure, McIntosh and Logan counties in North Dakota and McPherson and Brown counties in South Dakota. . . . The recent loan signed by Claude Wickard, REA administrator, is only the first step in the rural telephone program. . . . The Dickey co-op was organized in July, 1949 and incorporated a year ago. . . . County agent Mitchel says the telephone program applies to eight townships in eastern Logan county.
	Map on p. 42, [proposed rural telephone coverage in Logan County]
1952-53	There was considerable progress, and there were many meetings, on rural telephone matters. Dickey Rural Telephone hired an organizer to sign up farmers. The agent provides these notes on some development in December. Two meetings on rural telephones were attended. The first, Dec. 20, was a big fight with nothing accomplished to get the Dickey and BEK coops to compromise the Napoleon trade area. The second meeting, December 30, in Farmers Union State Office, was attended by both coops and the county organizing board. The state engineer also attended. The area was split and the faces were long. Anyway, I lost one day of vacation – but the feeling was good – as the problem was settled. It is unpleasant to know that the farmers were divided and upset, as I was too, about the RTA business. . . . As the report year ended, it was only a matter of hours before the 30 farmers in the Fredonia would be enjoying telephones.
	Map on p. 27, [proposed rural telephone coverage in Logan County]
1953-54	The report evidences increasing use of chemical herbicides. Never has the agent been asked to adjust so many sprayers or give help and information on chemical contact of weeds than during the year. Sprayers were adjusted in the Fredonia, Lehr, Streeter, and Napoleon areas. Over ¼ of all crops will be sprayed for weeds this year. The sprayer adjustment meeting held in Lehr, and numerous success stories have seen a great interest in spraying weeds. It will be necessary to caution against improper mistures, poor mixing, spraying non-hardy varieties, speed, and managerial handling of chemicals. The three leafy spurge control demonstration plots were checked for kill by seven different kinds of chemicals. One plot is on Martin Erbele’s land, about center of county where five acres are already lost to spurge; another plot is on a county road in Lautt township where about 75 acres are lost to spurge and the other trial is 1 ½ miles south of Fredonia. It’s estimated at least 100 people observe the trial each year. It is also estimated that 240 acres of plowland are now unproductive due to spurge.
	Map on p. 23, Leafy Spurge
	BEK Telephone Mutual Aid Corp. of Steele has completed a deal with the N.D. Telephone Co. to buy the Hazelton telephone exchange. Other cooperatives are still waiting to strike similar deals with the N.D. Telephone Co. This is good, however: GLOOMY OUTLOOK FOR RURAL TELEPHONE: At a meeting in Lehr and Gackle city halls, Ray Burkle, Logan county board member on Dickey Telephone, discussed the problems of building in each area. At Gackle a committee of business men headed by Emmanuel “Pete” Remboldt, will assist the program. . . . The loan has been approved and the money is available to build telephone lines in Logan county. Farmers could expect a telephone this fall if the sign-up is 60 per cent. . . . Since all building of lines is on area coverage, no small areas can left out and other areas built. . . . Telephones became a reality in the fall of 1953 in the area northwest of Fredonia. 30 farmers received telephone service from the Dickey Rural Telephone Coop, of Ellendale. Since the phones were installed, these neighbors are busy enjoying visiting and doing business over the phone. These were the first telephone lines to have been built in Logan county by the co-op.
	Map on p. 43, Approximate Telephone Boundaries

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