Minnewaukan illustrated

• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: State Historical Society of North Dakota
• Subjects: Devils Lake; Glacial Lake; Leet; Rotten; Sinclair; Stump; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: http://cdm16921.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/ndsl-books/id/53739

1 THE NEW SCHOOL HOUSE. / ^ FLUCTUATIONS OF DEVILS LAKE. Nothing spunk's better for :i community than good school houses ;md competent teachers In this parr ticular M imunviiukan Ims been fortuna’e. From the. estiihlisliim-nt ol the first school, in 1884, up to the present the children of liie village and town­ship have hud every educational advantage afford­ed litem that the circumstance*- would permit. As the settlers Increased and tin*- school revenues in­creased, so have the schools and teachers increase*!.- The small room,with a dozen children or so. ami one teacher, has gradually grown to a two story fr.itne building, with three teachers; ami Irom the latter to a splendid brick building and a staff of teachers that would do credit to any place. The new building is located on the west side Of the N. I*, track, a little south of the old school, and faces the. rising sun. It is a modern brick building erected at si cost of 816,000, and has six large well lighted school moms besides teachers’ room siiid library, superintendent*?, ollice, laboratory, gymnasium* si ml two play rooms in the basement, l'lie building is heated by steam and the ventilation is good. It is one of the hesi. school houses in the state si ml might well he the pride of any community. The staff of teachers at present numbers four: Frol. W. .1. Bruch man, Principal. Mrs. S E Rolf, < frammar Department. Mrs. Clara Sinclair, Intermediate. Miss Mary Cain. Primary. Prof. Bruchman hsis been principal for two years. He is a graduate from the teachers’ course of the University of Minnesota in 1899 si mi holds a life certificate in Minnesota sis well sis North Dakota As for .Mrs, Knife sind Mrs. Sinclair, their qiiali-csiiious an* silsn unquestionable. Mrs. Roll is an old teacher sine I sin old resident of Miiinewaukuii. Miss MsiryC-ain is also well qualified, stud lists, had charge, of the. Primmy department of the Miu-newaukan school for some yesus. Owing to want of room, in the old building the primary department was conducted lor some lime in the Second floor of the buildingoccupied sis sin office by County Clerk Duncan. With tlie present school and. equipment, anil the maintaining of an efficient corps of teachers, and by good business management, there is no reason why the M iiinewauksm schools should nut continue to improve sind become among the best in the state. The. new school was completed sind occupied eailv in January ol the present year. If. V Arnold, of l.arimore. conti Unites: the lol lowing article to “Illustrated Minnewauka.fi” on.the abovq subject. Old residents of Aliiinewaukah, who remember when the hike came up to within a lew yards of .the village .and-, when West End and New (M.iesigo were also connected by navigation with other ports on the lake, will find it interesting and instructive. The basin, of both Devil and .Slump hakes is quite probably, in part at least, a remnant ol the pre-glacial erosion of this portion of the s'site, or, in other words, si part of the pre-glacial valley of the Sheyenne river « Inch was not wholly .filled stud obliterated by the materials brought and, pushed silong by the ice-sheet that formed during tIn- Chicisil period. Moreover, during the closing centuries of the Ice age the. basin of the lake lay in the line of the eighth ami ninth, or Fergus Kails and Leaf Mills, st ges of the. northward recession of the glacial margin, l»y which ilie moraines bearing tlmse ii lines were piled up during those intervals of bait that occurred successively in the retreat of the ice front. Sometimes the several lines of moraine in­terlace or merge fqgetbe.r sit some points though •separated many miles apart where they pass through oilier sections. Thus, the high hills south of Devil* and Stump lakes appear to represent the coalition of the Fergus Falls and Leaf M ills stages of halt lirade by the glacial margin while retreating- back­ward to-its ni.i.ginsil gathering ground north of our international boundary. The ice front was apt to have lingered long upon high ground, so it is quite probable ih.it the nucleus of these elevations near Devils and Slump lakes is cretaceous clay and shales,' which was the pre-glacial surface forma lion of this part of North Dakota. The, glacial drift around Devils lake is usually 15 to 50 or more, feet thick when the cretaceous .'(Fort Pierre)', formation is reached. 'L'lie1piling up of moraine hills in the vi­cinity of the lake would have had a tendency to en­close si busiii, besides the plowing out that this de­pression received from a projecting tongue or lobe of the ice-sheet.' Dining every summer of the glacial melting, the region around the lake was flooded by the super­abundant waters, which drained off down the Shey­enne river, assisting in the excavation of its bluff lined valley, and finally discharged into the great glacial lake then in process of forming in i'he Bed Kiver valley. In 1SS9 the waters of llie lake stood' at 1430 feet above sea-level. From shore marks it is observ­able ill it during the glacial expansion of the lake the water stood about 25 feet, above this level, being then confluent with Stump lake, and the outlet of both was southward to the Sheveime from the lat­ter lake. About the year 1830 the lake stood 16 leet higher than in 1889, or nearly or quite up to the edge of the heavy timber line bordering on the lake basin. When Fort/rotten was built in 18*57-8, the surface was about 10 feet higher than the stage of 1889. Between 1880 and 1SS9 the, surface varied from 1434 to 1430 feet of altitude, a fluctuation of only lour feet. In August. 1887, the water stood at 1432 feet of altitude. During tlie long continued occupation of this region by Indians,- and later by fur traders, the surface of the lake appears to have been subject to periodic fluctuations of rise and fall covering inter­vals of approximately a dozen years. There is also evidence that since the Ice age, there have been long periods of desiccation, the water falling to about iis present stage, or sufficient for the growth of the submerged forests in Slump lake, and both lakes may have fallen and again risen to the stage reached about 1S30, many times since that remote epoch. But these is no evidence of any rise to the height of its glacial drainage outlet (1454 feet above sea level) ever having taken place since the close of the Ice age. The country adjacent to the north shore of Devils bike began to be occupied by settlers in the spring of 1882. The breaking up of the prairie sod for the cultivation ol grain in the years that-followed, mani­festly introduced new conditions, rendering the at­mospheric waters less liable to drain into the sloughs and thence into the lake. Especially since 1SS8 the surface of the lake has fallen so that it now stands about twenty feet lower than rts normal stage during the early eighties. Arms and bays of the lake, and wimt was the shallow water off shore have been laid hare or turned into meadows. E. J. Babcock, of the University of North Dakota, state geologist, is of the opinion that the surface will not decrease in the next fifteen years, to a correspond­ing amount that hns taken place in the same period now past Scanned with a Czur book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited in Adobe Acrobat Pro