North Dakota: A Guide to the Northern Prairie StateFederal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration for the State of North Dakota
History
North Dakota: A Guide to the Northern Prairie State
Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration for the State of North Dakota
North Dakota; North Dakota -- Guidebooks
The WORLD WAR MEMORIAL BUILDING, 504 4th St., is a community recreation
center. Studios and transmitter of KDLR are in the Grayson Hotel
building at the cor. 5th Ave. and 7th St.
At the W. end of 5th St. is the junction of ND 20, a graveled highway
(_see Side Tour 6A_) and ND 19. Right at this junction is ROOSEVELT
PARK (_swimming pool_, _picnicking_, _camping_), built as a WPA project.
North of Devils Lake US 2 passes SWEETWATER LAKE, =105 m.=, once a
large body of fresh water that attracted pioneers. Today, like that of
Devils Lake, its shore line has greatly receded.
CHURCHS FERRY, =123 m.= (1,460 alt., 295 pop.), developed from a
ferry established by Irvine Church across Mauvaise Coulee (Fr., _bad
streambed_) in 1886, so named by French explorers because it was
difficult to cross, the channel once drained a large territory into
Devils Lake to the S. Although it has been dry for several years, in
the 1870's and 1880's, until Church began his ferry, all goods for the
area NW. and W. of Devils Lake had to be boated across or hauled around
the southern shore of the lake.
At =124 m.= is the junction with US 281, a graveled highway (_see Tour
2_), which unites with US 2 from this point to =131 m.=
LEEDS, =135 m.= (1,514 alt., 725 pop.), with a predominantly
Scandinavian population, was established in 1884. It has paved streets
and a park (_swimming pool_). Because many stockholders in the G. N.
Ry. were Englishmen, several of the towns along the railroad, including
Leeds, were given names of English towns. One of the first newspapers
in this region, the Leeds _News_, founded in 1903, boosting the new
community in the customary manner, lauded it with this characteristic
humor: "A man died and entered heaven. On his first walk about his new
abode he noticed several men fettered in ball and chain. His inquiry of
a passer-by brought the reply, 'They came from Leeds, N. Dak., and if
they weren't chained they'd go back.'"
Left from Leeds on a county dirt road to LAKE IBSEN, =2 m.=, named for
Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian poet and dramatist. It is said that about 1858
a peace agreement between the Sioux and Chippewa Indians was made at
this lake, a treaty well observed by both tribes. Small islands in the
lake were known to explorers of the region as Petites Isles Aux Mortes
(Fr., _small islands of the dead_), owing to the fact that the Indians
had buried many victims of a devastating smallpox epidemic here. They
placed their dead on scaffolds, the wooden frames of which were visible
from the lake shores.
YORK, =142.5 m.= (1,612 alt., 250 pop.), is another town with an
English name and a predominantly Scandinavian population.
KNOX, =150 m.= (1,605 alt., 177 pop.), is named for John Knox, the
Scottish religious reformer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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