Dakota Diary -9 - Bismarck, Dakota Territory

16th June, 1883

Cora Sue and I wondered where to start when we arrived in Bismarck. We had very much enjoyed our 12 days on the river, and would miss the company of Captain Marsh, but he was staying only a few minutes to unload and load up again, and then he was off up the river. But he had told us that there would be a taxi available to take us to town.

After we had collected our baggage and walked to the street away from the dock, sure enough, there was a sort of taxi - a man with a horse and cart, and as there were no other takers, we climbed in,  and gave directions to the driver to go to a hotel.

“Which one?” he asked tersely.

“We don’t know the names, but one that is near the center of town,” said Cora Sue.

“They are all near the center of town. There is the Merchants' Hotel, The Custer Hotel, they are the closest. And then there the Pacific Hotel and the Montana Hotel and Franklin House, which is another Merchants' Hotel but that is farther away.”

“Well, let’s go to the closer Merchants' Hotel then. I couldn’t stand living in a place named after Custer,” I said.

It was about a two mile drive from the river into the center of town. It was a much more built-up
place than we had expected, (pictured above) from what we had read in our father’s reports about it. But, of course, that had been in 1874, 9 years ago, when he first arrived here. And at that stage, the railway had only just come, and the town had doubled or tripled in size since then.

The cabby, who hadn’t said a word on the whole journey, put us down outside the Merchants' Hotel
and told us that we owed him 25 cents. I happily added a nickel tip, and he seemed very pleased. “Thanks very much, misses. Enjoy your stay in Bismarck. And if you ever need a cabby, my name is Harry.” And with that he smiled broadly and tipped his hat.

“How would we contact you Harry? Just supposing we did need you?”

“When I am between jobs, I am usually by the train station - just across there - and if you know in
advance what you want to do and send me a note, I will give you preference over casual work.”

“Well, we will need to go all sorts of places, and not knowing our way around, we might well be
using you a lot,” I said. “Thanks again for now.” And he waved and drove off.

We went into the very basic hotel - comparing it unfavorably to the ones we had stayed in
recently in both Chicago and Omaha. But this was frontier country. There was no call for trying to impress important people in Bismarck.

Going up to the desk, Cora Sue inquired, “Have you a room available for us to occupy?”

“How many nights?”

“Well we aren’t yet sure, but several at least,” I answered. ”How much is it?”

“Two dollars a night per room, and if you stay a week, you get a bit of a reduction, so it is $10
for a week. Supper is 50 cents and breakfast is a quarter.”

“Book us for a week then,” and I gave him a $10 bill.

“Here you are, Room 4 at the back. Will you be wanting supper tonight?”

“Yes, please,” we both said together.

“It will be served from 5.30 to 6 sharp,” said the man.

“That is very early,” said Cora Sue.

“That’s when we eat around here. We don’t have your high faluting East coast ways of doing
things.”

“I’ll have you know we come from La Crosse originally,” said Cora Sue with high indignation.

“Well, you sound pretty East Coast to me,” said the clerk. “But La Crosse is a part of God’s
country too, so I’m sorry if I offended you. It was just your accent is sort of fast and clipped and uppity sounding.”

Then looking again at the register we had filled in he said, “Kellogg? You wouldn’t be related to Mark Kellogg, would you?”

“He was our father, actually,” said Cora Sue, proudly. “Did you know him?”

“The whole town knew him, and boy, were we sorry when he copped it like that. He didn’t deserve
that. None of them did. Blasted Indians. Excuse my language, ladies, but I get so het up about them Indians doing that.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. - I’m sorry, what is your name?”

“George Miner, Miss Kellogg. And if I can do anything to make your stay easier, just let me know.
Are you planning on visiting anybody in particular?”

“Well, we've made no contacts yet, but we intend to try to see Colonel Lounsberry and Mr. John Dunn, the chemist.”

“Well, they are both easy to find in the town. The Tribune offices are just down the block, and Mr. Dunn’s store is on Thayer.”

“Thank you. After we have freshened up, we will see if we can walk over and find them. Perhaps you can give us directions.”

“You can’t get lost in Bismarck. It is all on a grid - with the streets mostly numbered one, two and three and so on going north and south and the avenues, mostly called A, B and C going east and west except for the Main Street, which is the one we are on here now. And then up from that is Meigs, named after a Civil War General, I think, and then the next one is Thayer, that was named for another general, and then Rosser, named for a railway man, but he was an army general too, I think, and then you get to Avenue A. I expect you heard that we are going to have the capitol here now.
Lots more people will be coming into Bismarck then. And, of course, when the railway bridge is completed, lots more people will come here on their way to the west coast. I expect you ladies came in by train?”

“Well, Mr. Miner, no, we didn’t. We came by the Far West, as we felt it was important to experience that sort of transport while we still can. But we went as far as Omaha by train, and will be going back by train as well.”

“What did you think of the pilot? It’s a pity Captain Marsh doesn’t run it anymore. We haven’t seen much of his around here lately. And by the way, you can call me George.”

“Captain Marsh was on this trip, George. A sentimental journey he called it. He told us that he's now mostly working on the Mississippi and his family moved to Memphis. But we greatly enjoyed our time with him. We can tell you more about it later, as we really would like to go and freshen up now.”

“Sorry, ladies. I wasn’t thinking. Of course, I’ll get Tony to help you with your baggage. He’s the cook really, but he helps out in other ways between meals. And I hope I will have a chance to hear more
about your adventures later.”

“Thank you again, George.”

We went to our room, which was large and light and adequate, but certainly not fancy. We washed our faces and hands, and changed into clean blouses, and then prepared with notebooks and pencils for our first adventure in Bismarck. Going back to the front desk, George gave us a rough map of the area, pointing out where the buildings were that we wanted in relation to our hotel.

“You see, our hotel here, the Merchants' Hotel, is on Main Avenue and that Street running up outside is 3rd Street. Now to go to the Bismarck Daily Tribune office, you go across Main Avenue and about a block towards the river - that’s to the right - or west. You’ll see it plainly. It’s a big building with the sign Bismarck Daily Tribune outside. Just go inside and they can tell you how to get ahold of Colonel Lounsberry. Now the chemist is a bit more difficult. He has his shop between 2nd and
3rd Streets on Thayer Avenue. That is the avenue two blocks north of here. Anyway, the chemist is in what’s called the Pioneer Drug Store Building. His other place was burned down last year. So if you see that you will know you are in the right place, and then just ask where to go from there. He does have a shop window on the street, but as I said, it isn’t very big, so you might miss it. Any other directions I can give you girls?”

“Well, we will need to go to a bank.”

“That’s easy. There's one on Main Avenue here, but closer to 4th Street. That’s the First National Bank. Will that one do? There is another one, the Merchants' National Bank, but that is farther away.”

“No, that one will do fine. And on Sunday we shall want to go to the Catholic Church if there is
one.”

“Yes, there is one. Lots of Germans live here now and they seem to be mostly Catholics. It is quite a long way away though - down to 8th Street along Main - and then you actually go to the street below Main - which is beyond the train tracks. You have to be careful when you
cross there. And the church itself looks like a grain elevator because that is what it is. The church part is on the main floor, but the rest of it has more practical uses. We have five churches here
now - Catholic, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist. Pretty good that, for a town this size.”

“Yes, indeed, and thank you again, Mr. Miner, for all your help.”

“Please, call me George.”

“Well, in that case, you will have to call us by our first names too. I’m Cora Sue, and my sister
is called Mattie.”

“Those sure are pretty names.”

Smiling our thanks, we went out into the street. The day was hot, with the sun beating, and it only
took a few minutes for us to find the newspaper office. The man at the desk looked busy and flustered.

“Yeah, what do you girls want?”

“We would like to see Colonel Lounsberry if we could?” I said.

“Have you got an appointment? He’s a busy man.”

“No, but we have a letter of introduction from Mr. Bennett of the New York Herald.”

“What, do you know Mr. Bennett then?”

“Yes, - well not exactly personally, but we have contact with him.”

“Just a minute, I guess the boss will want to see you. What name should I give him?”

“Mattie and Cora Sue Kellogg.”

“Kellogg? You don’t mean you're related to Mark Kellogg?”

“He was our Pa.”

“Wow, I’m sure he will see you now. Just have a seat here, girls. I won’t be a minute.”

It was probably five minutes later when an older man with a slight limp came into the area where the girls were sitting. “Hello. I am Colonel Lounsberry. I believe you are claiming that you are related to Mark Kellogg, is that right?”

“What do you mean, claiming?” said Cora Sue, very annoyed. “We aren’t making it up. He was our Pa. And if you are interested, Mr. Bennett obviously is happy with whom we say we are. Here is his letter.” Cora Sue handed the letter to Colonel Lounsberry who looked at it, and handed it back.

“Yes, well that certainly appears to be genuine. And I guess this letter I got the other day belongs to you.” He handed us a letter addressed to Misses M and C Kellogg, in care of Col. CA Lounsberry
“So you two are Mark’s daughters. I knew he had children, but I didn’t expect them to be beautiful young women like yourselves. What are you doing in town?”

“We came because we wanted to see the places our Pa lived and worked and wrote about. And we wanted to meet the people who knew him.”

“Well, I certainly knew him. Knew him well. But what am I thinking of? We must have you around for a meal and we can talk properly. How long are you girls staying? And where are you staying?”

“At the Merchants' Hotel on Main. We don’t have a set schedule. We registered for a week but we will stay as long as we need to find out what we want to know and see all we can.”

“Oh, yes of course.  I will get a message to you there once I have talked to my wife about it. So it probably will be tomorrow morning when I can let you know, but I expect we will see you soon.”

Just then I caught sight of a newspaper that was folded up on a bench. I glimpsed the headline “Tom Thumb Dead.” I picked it up.

With my voice shaking with emotion I said, “Can I buy this paper from you?”

“You can have it on me. It will give you a chance to see what's going on in our town. Quite a big story today. Or a little story, if you see what I mean,” he said with a laugh.

 

“We knew Tom Thumb. We knew he was in a fire a few months ago, but we thought he was okay.” We were both near to tears, wanting to get away and read the article thoroughly to find out just what had happened.

“Oh, it wasn’t the fire that killed him. It was a stroke. You can read all about it in there. You
say you know him? Where are you girls from then? I thought Mark came from La Crosse.”

“Well, we moved from there in 77. We now live in Bridgeport, Connecticut - which is where Phineus
Barnum also lives, whom we know, and it was through him that we met Tom Thumb and his wife.”

“Well what treasures you girls are. Maybe I will run a story about you and your famous friends. Who
else do you know?”

“Really, Colonel Lounsberry, we will have to postpone our discussion with you for a later date,” I said. “As you can see, my sister and I cannot really engage in small talk to you at this time. We need to compose ourselves after hearing of this tragedy. But if you wish to invite us to a meal
sometime, that would be fine. Just tell us when and where. Good afternoon to you.”