LARIMORE
Somebody once said a pageant was a big outdoor play in which people in everyday walks of life—John and Joe and Susan—take an active part and tell the story of what happened in the neighborhood, county, or state in their own manner. It is something that might be called a human festival, because the people young and old and even “the animals, the oxen and the horse, the donkey and the dog” all take part.
This particular kind of a play was especially well portrayed in “The Story of Grand Forks County,” a historical pageant in five episodes, which was presented in the little town of Larimore on June second, nineteen hundred and twenty. Thirty different communities, working in coöperation and under the direction of a central committee, selected the material, dramatized the events, and acted the parts. One thousand persons, ranging in age from a seven-months-old baby to a white-haired man of sixty-five were the players. Schools, churches, clubs, bands, choruses, and various other social agencies contributed their enthusiasm and energies in making the spectacle a success. Ten thousand people saw the production. Eleven hundred automobiles were parked on the grounds, and this did not include those standing in rows in the center of down-town streets.
Larimore, after all, isn’t such a big town, but it is a mighty interesting place. Its population is made up of people who appreciate the big things in life. And when a worth-while thing comes along they put their shoulders to the wheel and—well they make whatever it is go. They showed their mettle when they built the stage for the pageant in a corner of their newly laid-out park. For several days, sometimes in the morning as early as five o’clock, the men in the community were up and at work. They used ice tongs to carry the four hundred bridge planks, which, by the way, were eighteen feet long, twelve inches wide, and four inches thick. They borrowed these from the county commissioners and constructed a huge platform seventy-two feet in width and thirty-six feet in depth. The background was one hundred and fifty-six feet long and twenty feet in height. There were two wings, fourteen and sixteen feet high respectively, on each side. All of these were covered with branches of trees cut and hauled on hayracks from a nearby brook. In the center of the background rows of seats were built in the shape of a tree which held a chorus of two hundred girls, robed in pure white. They came from different sections of the county and sang during the interludes. The seats were arranged in amphitheater style. At each corner a band was stationed. Tents pitched back of the stage were used for dressing rooms. The stage manager happened to be a local auto taxi owner.
June second was an ideal day. At two o’clock in the afternoon the buglers announced the opening of “The Story of Grand Forks County,” a historical pageant in five episodes. Then came the procession of the bands and a chorus. The prologue or story of the play followed. It was written by one schoolmaster and given by another. It is well worth quoting, for it not only shows a fine poetic temperament but tells the history of one of America’s finest agricultural counties.
“Friends, we have gathered here beneath the vaulted sky,
In God’s great out-of-doors, where nature greets the eye,