"A heavy and smoke laden atmosphere and a sky streaked with a dull red reflection of burning grass proclaimed the fierce raging of prairie fires north, south and west of the city last night," reported the Jamestown Daily Alert.... "For at least 40 miles in width the fire burned off every vestige of grass unprotected by breaks. One could hardly recognize the charred land the next day. Thousands of bushels of grain were burned and many men lost all they had, grain, buildings and stock."
EDGELEY, 215 m. (1,565 alt., 821 pop.), was named by Richard Sykes, once owner of the site, for his former home in England. It is the meeting point of an N. P. Ry. branch line, a branch of the Milwaukee R. R., and the Midland main line.
From Edgeley to the South Dakota Line, the hills of the Missouri Plateau loom (R) in the distance.
At 237 m. is a junction with a graveled county road.
Left on this road to WHITESTONE HILL BATTLEFIELD STATE PARK, 16 m., where Gen. Alfred Sully and his command met a band of Sioux Indians on the evening of Sept. 3, 1863, in the most severe engagement fought on North Dakota soil since the coming of the white man. A granite monument 25 ft. in height, bearing the figure of a mounted cavalryman, has been erected about three-fourths of a mile NW. of the site of the battle. Reinterred about the base of the monument, each with an appropriate marker, are the remains of the soldiers who died here. Generals Sully and Sibley had been sent out from Minnesota to punish the Indians who had taken part in the Minnesota Massacre of 1862. Sully was to move up the Missouri, while Sibley marched W. across the country. When Sully, delayed by low water, arrived in the neighborhood of present Bismarck, where he was to meet Sibley, he found the latter had given up the idea of the proposed meeting and started on the return journey to Minnesota. He also discovered that the Sioux, who had fled over the Missouri upon Sibley's approach, had now recrossed to their old hunting grounds on the James River. He immediately set out in pursuit, and overtook them in a three-day march. The Indians retreated while the soldiers, on higher ground, poured in a murderous fire. Sully's casualties were 34 men wounded and 19 killed, while the Indian loss was estimated at 150. It is now believed that the Sioux encountered here did not take part in the Minnesota Massacre. The perpetrators of the massacre were known to have fled W., however, and it was natural for the soldiers to regard any Indians they met as enemies.
ELLENDALE, 248 m. (1,448 alt., 1,264 pop.), named for Ellen Dale Merrill, wife of a Milwaukee R. R. official, is the Dickey County seat. At the end of Main St. on the eastern edge of the trim little town, attractively arranged on a well-kept campus, are the six brick buildings of the State Normal and Industrial School, a teachers college and vocational institution. When it opened its doors in 1889 it offered the first free course in manual training in the United States.
At 253 m. US 281 crosses the South Dakota Line, 35 m. N. of Aberdeen, S. Dak. (see S. Dak. Tour 11).
TOUR 3
(Virden, Man., Can.)—Westhope—Minot—Washburn—Bismarck—Linton—(Pierre, S. Dak.). US 83.