| Summary: | ing classes to make an active nucleus in Minot. The drys were active in Minot's first mayoralty election, though they lost it. Their candidate was a worthy man named William Hope, a merchant, who was defeated by Jim Scofield. There were three saloon keepers among the men elected to the first seven-man city council. Missionaries of a number of churches, representing Reformed, Lutheran and Catholic branches of Christendom, ventured into the Mouse valley even before Minot came into existence. The first congregation formally organized in the valley was Norwegian Lutheran. After Minot came into existence, the first group to organize a congregation was the Methodists. The Presbyterians were first to build a church. The Methodists, Baptists, Catholics and Lutherans followed. The Baptists were first to have a brick building. In the friendly rivalry that continued between the Methodists and Presbyterians for many years, the Methodists were first to erect a large (for the times) brick church, when the second round of church building programs started in the first decade of the 20th century. Not a few of the ministers of the early days spoke out against the liquor traffic, the vice, looseness of life and general corruption that admittedly existed in the community in those days. One of them, a vigorous Methodist from Newfoundland, Rev. Gideon Powell, had the nerve to run for mayor in 1907. His most remembered utterance, perhaps, was: "Elect me mayor of Minot, and I will make Minot the very vestibule of Heaven." He was not elected. In some categories it is difficult to establish who was first, for this or that, in the annals of Ward County and Minot. In other categories the firsts seem pretty well confirmed, with the memories of the pioneers in substantial agreement. No one has disputed that George Bell from Chesley, near Owen Sound, Ontario, was the first to file and prove up a preemption entry, in Section 13, Township 154, Range 82, in 1880. No one disputes that, although no town was started there immediately, the Sawyer- Logan section of the Mouse valley is the section ^—"S, with the longest record of continuous habitation by land-acquiring settlers. It is acknowledged that Burlington had the first hotel in the county, and was the only "town" existing at the time it became the first county seat. The first post office mentioned by a North Dakota historian is that of Black, named for L. C. Black, a rancher, northeast of Sawyer, in 1882. The first child born to a family of permanent settlers was Charley Gasmann, to Mr. and Mrs. Henry Gasmann at their cabin near Gasman Coulee in October, 1882. The first child born within the present-day limits or environs of the city of Minot was Charles Oliver Spok- lie, to Mr. and Mrs. Ole Spoklie, in the fall of 1883. The first child born in the original town- site of Minot was Ernest Minot Tompkins, to Mr. and Mrs. Allan Tompkins, on Nov. 27, 1886, in a dwelling on lower Main street. The first child born in the Des Lacs valley above Burlington was Gretha Peterson Hooke, born May 22, 1887, to Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Peterson, in a log cabin near present-day Foxholm. The last two mentioned are still living, and are active members of the Ward County Old Settlers Association. The first sawmill in the county was operated by Dave Kennedy, and it started operating in 1884 at the Mill Timber site. It cut rough oak boards for floors, doors and windows of pioneer homes. The first grain known to have been seeded and reaped was a field put in by Olaf A. Olson in 1882, east of the site of Sawyer. The first blooded bull known to have been brought into the county was an Angus animal belonging to Carl Larson, near St. Carl. Later this bull attacked Larson and caused his death. The first lignite coal to be dug and used for fuel, so far as the record shows, was at Burlington in the spring of 1883. It was tried out by James Johnson and J. L. Colton. Burlington became the first center for lignite mining in the county. When the county was organized in 1885, the first elected county officials were: J. A. Baker, Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited in Multi-page TIFF Editor.
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