| Summary: | 'Since 1887" production of lignite coal. One of these coal mines was known as Granly Mines which operated at its peak in toe 1930's. The M and M Coal Company also located south of Tioga, was very active up to the year 1950. Cattle rai-'ingand grainfarmingstillis one of toe most important forms of toe area's economy. The city now has two doctors; a new hospital which was finished In 1961, and also aclinic, constructed in 1953. The first came to Tioga in 1905, was Dr. Stobbie, a former resident of Michigan, and he practiced here until the year 1917. However, to be a doctor at that time, being there was no hospitals, the medical doctor was required to perform surgery in the patient's home and if it was at night it was done by the light of a kerosene lamp. The 1960 census showed a population of 2087 within the limits of toe City. The surrounding trade areahas approximately 500 people. Besides other new business, T ioga boasts a number of fine churches, some with new buildings and hospital facilities to adequately serve the territory. A community is not complete unless it has a newspaper. The first newspaper known as the Tioga Gazette was started in 1904, with Mr. Miller as the editor. Two years later he was succeeded by H. F. Irwin. The Gazette was sold by Mr. Irwin in the early 20's and afterwards operated by various owners, but in the late 30's ceased publication. Then in 1952, the Tioga Tribune was started and the editor was Ronald McMaster. The present editor and owner of toe Tribune is Pius Hornstein. McGregor One of toe best farming districts in Williams county is toe McGregor area. In the northeast part of the county, a country of rolling prairie and a diversity of good soils. This region is on the divide between the waters of toe Missouri River and the waters that flow north into Canada. This also takes in the region of the Upper White Earth River to the East and Southeast of McGregor. This was also a fine ranching area before the advent of grain growing farmers especially in what was known as The Big Meadow. Such was the spot selected by Frank Hankey, who established a large stock ranch in this vicinity at ancarly day. His ranch corrals stood for many years about a mile south of the village of McGregor and was a landmark. In later days McGregor became toe shipping point on the railroad for a well-settled and prosperous community. In 1914 McGregor had a newspaper called the McGregor Herald, one bank, one real estate office, two general stores, one hardware store, one hotel, one cream station, one ice-cream parlor and confectionery, one feed mill, two elevators, one implement house, one lumber yard, one pool hall, blacksmith and wagon shop, livery and dray line, one harness and shoe store, one stock buyer, and many other artisans which all went to make it a thriving village. They also had an active commercial club. T e m pi e Temple is a small village on toe mainline of the Great Northern Railroad, which very early was a farmer's town, forty miles northeast of Williston. It had a bank, two elevators, good general stores, and a new built school house which was erected in 1925. Some of those living at Temple in the twenties were John Bach- tell, Frank Daly, Mrs. Mary Donnelly, M. B. Dowd, Theo. Hide, Andrew Haarstad, C. A. Helling, Ole P. Johnson, Ole Lundy, Carl Meyer, Matt McCormick, Harry Nelson, Albin Nelson, Oscar Nord- quist, C. M. and Victor Nordquist, Victor, Edward, Frank, James, Frank and Bert O'Connell, John Orser, Hugh Payton, A. I?. Ringey, L. T, RuettcnandHelmer Wattestad. Smith and Knox was a business firm. Hamlet Hamlet became an incorporated village soon after the Great Northern Railroad built toe branch line across the northern part of Williams County, and it lies 00 miles northwest of Williston. In 1926 it had good stores, churches, and a public school system that was housed in a modern building completed in 1923. Some of toe people who lived in Hamlet were A. T. Asp, Wm. Battleson, A. R. Bareness, Dagmar Bekkedahl, C. L. Rekkedahl, Sigurd Birkele, A. C. Hankey, Knute Halverson, A. O. Heimsness, Albert Hove, M. J. Homer, Ernest Iverson, J. J. Kasmer, John Kneisel, Lage Larson, Joseph Lenihan, Alfred Mattson, W. C. Miles, Emery Nests, Niels Nielson, Olaf Olson, Christ Olson, Peter Oslund. T. M. Smith, H, K. Smith, Lester Smith, Oscar 1). Swenson. Nels P. Nelson was a merchant in Hamlet in the early days. Cottonwood Lake (Alamo) 1914 Herald At the turn of the century, in north central Williams County, a few miles from too northern boundary line, was situated what was known as the largest natural lake in tills part of toe state. In earlier ages, we are told, toe, melting away of an ancient glacier left a narrow range of low hills, running east and west across the country, and left the waters from the glacier to take their course, which formed the bed of the Little Muddy Valley. There were other streams from the North and East from over toe Divide county line which fed the Lake. In 1899, a pioneer by the name of Len Heen saw the advantages of the area for ranching and settled on the banks of Cottonwood Lake and ran a large outfit there. There were only a few other ranches in the area then, such as the Eagle Ranch 7-miles south of toe Lake, Doc Zahl's place 11-miles to the west, Thomas Freeman, north of Marmon post office, and that of Frank Hankey over on the Big Meadow. This condition did not lastforlong, however, for after toe homestead laws allowed more acreage settlers became interested in farming, and by 1904 there was a grand influx of settlers to the area. And all that was left of the range was what was unfit for raising grain. Instead of each homesteader freighting his supplies from faraway railroads such as Williston and Crosby, it was soon found to Ix: expedient to establish a trading post at Cottonwood Lake, which enterprise became the village of Cottonwood Lake. Soon after there had been a few business buildings erected and were doing a fine trade the people of the town suffered a serious setback by fire in 1911, when six of toe new business places were destroyed by fire. One of these was the office of the Williams County Mixer, the village's newspaper. Cottonwood Lake was an out-of-the-way place where occasionally, men came who sought the obscurity of an inland town. Coal mines to the west of there also were conductive to the arrival of this type of character. Also, Other settlers of the cowboy and rancher type had clung to many of their rugged and rough-and-ready ways of a former day. Cottonwood Lake outgrew the character of a frontier town and became a prosperous, and thriving agricultural community, with the building of the Great Northern branch of the Railroad to Wildrose, fourteen miles to the east. In 1912 and later, it became a town on the railroad itself, when the branch line was extended across the rest of the north country. The railroad secured the townsite which later, became Alamo. Some of the first residents of the village were F. H. Hodges, homesteader and manager of the Pioneer Store; the late Oscar West- berg, homesteader, and cashier of toe Farmers and Merchants Ban!;; A. C. Johnson, early settler who later, rana blacksmith shop; J. L. Williams shoemaker and livery stable owner; (he was also a cattle and hog buyer-). Albert Tyberg, farmer, and proprietor of toe Cottonwood Lake Iron Works; F. Stefonowicz, editor and publisher of the Williams) County Mixer, which paper he brought from Zahl earlier. Before coming here he had owned a paper, the Wheelook 1907--A group of homesteaders including Mr. and Mrs. Olaf Olson and family, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Ottoson, Pauline Skaaden, Clara Bruem, Olaf Holte, Elmer Schoflo, all of Cottonwood Lake. 60 Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited in Multi-page TIFF Editor.
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