Although old-fashioned, rambling houses set in spacious lawns and numerous old buildings fronting the business streets create an unhurried atmosphere, Cooperstown has contributed several progressives to the national picture. Gerald P. Nye (1892-), U. S. Senator from North Dakota, chairman (1936) of the committee for investigation of the munitions industry, was a weekly newspaper editor here when he was appointed to a vacancy in the Senate in 1925. Former Congressman James H. Sinclair (1871-), member of the Agricultural Committee (1925-1935), and coauthor of the Norris-Sinclair farm relief bill, was superintendent of the Cooperstown schools (1896-1898), and register of deeds (1899-1905). Thomas R. Amlie (1897-), Wisconsin Congressman, and Edward D. Stair (1859-), publisher of the Detroit (Mich.) Free Press, are also former residents.
Stair established Cooperstown's first paper, the Courier, the year the town was founded, and even before coming here had a hand in its history. He was feature writer for the Fargo Argus and was also working as a mail clerk on a railroad terminating in Hope at the time that Cooperstown, then only a small settlement, decided to contest Hope's right to the county seat. Stair learned that Hope was colonizing voters with an eye to the coming county seat election, and exposed the plan in a series of stories in the Argus. Hope residents were enraged, and warned him, if he wished to keep his skin unpunctured, to stay out of town, which was extremely difficult in view of the fact that his train made a lay-over of several hours there. His fellow mail clerk, a six-foot newspaper man, came to his support, and the two, with six-shooters dangling from their hips, sauntered about Hope unmolested but hungry, for the only hotel in town refused to sell food to the enemy. Cooperstown won the election, but Hope refused to concede victory, and it required two raids by Cooperstown residents to obtain the county records for the new county seat.
On the Griggs County Courthouse grounds stands the Opheim Log Cabin, the first permanent white home in the county. Built in 1879 by Omund Nels Opheim on his claim NE. of Cooperstown, it was moved to its present site to become a pioneer memorial, and contains the hand-made furniture used by its former occupants.
East from Cooperstown on ND 7 to the junction with a dirt road, 3 m.; R. here to another junction, 7 m.; R. on a prairie trail to a circular group of five conical MOUNDS, 7.5 m. From excavations made in similar mounds along the lower Sheyenne River (see Side Tour 8A) archeologists believe that most of these tumuli were built for burial purposes.
ND 1 and 7 are identical between 41.5 m. and 49.5 m., where ND 1 proceeds R. to enter the rounded, lake-dotted hills of the DOVRE MORAINE, seventh ridge formed by debris deposited during the halts of the retreating glaciers. The Nicollet-Fremont and Stevens expeditions, the Sibley column, and both a gold seekers' caravan and an immigrant train guided by Capt. James Fisk crossed this moraine at various times, camping on some of the lakes.
At 55 m. is the junction with a prairie trail. At this junction is (R) CAMP ATCHESON HISTORIC SITE, commemorating establishment of Sibley's base camp July 18, 1863.
Left on the prairie trail to LAKE SIBLEY, 0.5 m., a small morainic lake on the northeastern shore of which is the actual Site of Camp Atcheson. The camp was named for Capt. Charles Atcheson of Sibley's staff. When General Sibley heard from friendly Chippewa Indians that the Sioux he was pursuing were fleeing from the Devils Lake region toward the Missouri River, he hastily ordered trenches dug and breastworks thrown up, and inside this fortification placed all his sick men, weak horses, the baggage train, the cattle, and the surplus of supply wagons. Leaving two companies of infantry to maintain the camp he started after the Sioux. The main column, traveling light, succeeded in driving them across the Missouri near Bismarck, and returned to the base camp a month later. On a hill overlooking the lake from the NE. a marble marker denotes the grave of a private who died here.
At 57 m. is the junction with an unimproved dirt road.
Right here to LAKE JESSIE, 2.3 m., where the bed of a once mirror-like body of water now blows with alkali dust. In the early 1900's 12 ft. of water covered the lake bed, but in 1933 motorcycle races were run here. A heavy growth of timber, which has survived the lake, and a fine spring at its west end made it a landmark for explorers of the region. Nicollet and Fremont camped here in 1839, and Fremont named the lake for his fiancee, Jessie Benton. In 1853 Gov. I. I. Stevens, guided by Pierre Bottineau (see History), camped on the lake on his way to become Governor of Washington Territory. In 1862 Capt. James Fisk, guiding a party of gold seekers to the fields in Montana and Utah, camped on Lake Jessie, and again in 1863 stopped at the lake several days with an immigrant train he led through the State. The second Fisk expedition and the Sibley column, on Lake Sibley, were but a few miles apart, and the two camps exchanged visits.