FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 28, 2007
Contact: Marilyn Snyder
(701) 328-2792
SPEAKERS, PROGRAMS FEATURED AT LINCOLN LEGACY: THE RAILROAD, THEME OF 19th ANNUAL GOVERNOR’S HISTORY CONFERENCE NOVEMBER 2-3
BISMARCK – The theme for the 19th annual Governor’s Conference on North Dakota History will highlight the impact of the railroad on North Dakota and the region. Lincoln Legacy: The Railroad, featuring a variety of programs and presentations, will take place November 2-3 at the North Dakota Heritage Center in Bismarck.
It is the first part of a two-part theme for this annual history conference. The Fall 2008 history conference theme, Lincoln Legacy: The Homestead Act, will examine the Act’s impact on the state and region. The themes are part of North Dakota’s observance of the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth on February 12, 2009. The state’s commemoration will be held in conjunction with the official national observance, which begins with a major event at his birthplace in Kentucky on February 12, 2008 and continues through February 12, 2010. President Lincoln signed the charter for the Northern Pacific Railroad on July 2, 1864, and signed the Homestead Act on May 20, 1862.
The conference is sponsored by the state’s history agency, the State Historical Society of North Dakota (SHSND). It is funded in part by Lincoln Bicentennial appropriations from the 2007 Legislative Assembly.
Three workshops will be offered Friday, November 2. They are:
• Disaster Response: The Critical First 48 Hours will be presented from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. by Neil Cockerline, Director of Preservation Services with the Midwest Art Conservation Center (MACC) in Minneapolis. It will address how to lessen the impact of a disaster on potential responders by providing basic information on the steps in the process and follow up with discussion and a hands-on role playing exercise. The morning session will be in the classroom with preparatory materials for a hands-on afternoon with a simulated disaster drill. Participants should dress appropriately for an active afternoon. Cockerline came to the MACC in 1999 from Las Vegas, where he had been consulting on conservation and collections management issues in private practice. He worked as an associate conservator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for 12 years and has been a visiting instructor for the City College of San Francisco, the Graduate Center for Museum Studies at the John F. Kennedy University in Orinda, California, and the Art History Program at Anderson University in Anderson, Indiana. He has also had significant training and experience in disaster response and mitigation.
For the Disaster Response workshop, participation is limited to the first 25 paid registrants. The registration fee includes lunch. Now through Monday, October 15, the Early Bird fee is $75. From Tuesday, October 16 through the final registration deadline of Friday, October 26, the fee will be $80. To register, call SHSND Administrative Assistant Kiri Stone at (701) 328-2799 or email at kstone@nd.gov.
• Using Railroad Records at the Minnesota Historical Society (MHS) will be presented from 9 a.m. to 12 noon by Duane Swanson, a reference specialist with the MHS. The MHS holds more than 15,000 boxes of administrative, financial, engineering, personnel, printed and audio-visual records of the Northern Pacific, Great Northern and Soo Line railroads. These records date from the 1850s into the late 20th Century, and document the entire geographic regions served by these lines. This session will describe the types of records available, how they are arranged, and how they can be accessed. They include the records from the three railroads through North Dakota from the beginning of planning the railroads, the building of the railroads, and their operations to the present time. Many North Dakota family histories are inherent in these records.
For the Using Railroad Records workshop, the Early Bird registration fee now through Monday, October 15 is $27 for SHSND Foundation members, and $30 for non-members. From Tuesday, October 16 through the final registration deadline of Friday, October 26, the fee will be $32 for SHSND Foundation members, and $35 for non-members. To register, call SHSND Administrative Assistant Kiri Stone at (701) 328-2799 or email at kstone@nd.gov.
• The Railroads: Bedrock of Bismarck – A Guided Tour will take place from 1 to 5 p.m., when conference participants will travel to visit historic railroad sites in the capital city. Tour guides will be the SHSND’s Curator of Collections Research Mark Halvorson and Architectural Historian Mary Kate Ryan, who will explore how the railroads shaped the city of Bismarck. The tour will include site visits to extant warehouses, depots and other commercial, industrial and residential sites that have a connection with this seminal transportation network. Participants should be prepared for weather and some walking. An afternoon break is planned in an appropriate railroad setting.
Participation in The Railroads: Bedrock of Bismarck tour is limited to the first 45 paid registrants. The Early Bird registration fee now through Monday, October 15 is $27 for SHSND Foundation members, and $30 for non-members. From Tuesday, October 16 through the final registration deadline of Friday, October 26, the fee will be $32 for SHSND Foundation members, and $35 for non-members. To register, call SHSND Administrative Assistant Kiri Stone at (701) 328-2799 or email at kstone@nd.gov.
Lunch on Friday will be served at 12 noon. All meals during the conference will be prepared from a menu of foods served in the Northern Pacific Railroad’s Northcoast Limited Dining Car in 1964. The annual meeting of the SHSND Foundation will also be held during the lunch, beginning at 12:30 p.m.
At 2:30 p.m., there will be a ribbon cutting for the new addition to the SHSND’s archives area of the North Dakota Heritage Center. This 30,000-square-foot addition provides much-needed additional to the State Archives, reducing the need for more off-site storage facilities. The $5.7 million addition was funded through a $5.5 million bond approved by the 2005 Legislative Assembly, and a $200,000 grant from the North Dakota Department of Transportation.
Also on Friday, a social hour will take place following the train tour, beginning at 5 p.m., and will include book signings by the authors presenting at the conference. This will be followed by a banquet at 6 p.m., once again featuring food from an actual Northern Pacific Railroad menu from the railroad’s Northcoast Limited Dining Car. An awards recognition program will be held at 7:15 p.m., followed by a dessert and coffee reception at 8:30 p.m., which will include a special celebration of the 118th anniversary of North Dakota’s statehood, which occurred November 2, 1889. The Early Bird cost for the dinner and dessert now through Monday, October 15 is $20 for SHSND Foundation members, and $22 for non-members. From Tuesday, October 16 through the final payment deadline of Friday, October 26, the cost for the dinner and dessert will be $22 for SHSND Foundation members, and $25 for non-members. To pay, call SHSND Administrative Assistant Kiri Stone at (701) 328-2799 or email at kstone@nd.gov.
The day’s events for Saturday, November 3 will begin with a brochure swap at 8 a.m. that continues until 3 p.m. Participants are encouraged to bring their brochures to exchange with others in attendance throughout the day.
Saturday’s programs, from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., will feature several speakers and entertainment centered on the railroad theme. For Saturday’s programs, the Early Bird registration fee now through Monday, October 15 is $45 for SHSND Foundation members, and $50 for non-members. From Tuesday, October 16 through the final registration deadline of Friday, October 26, the fee will be $50 for SHSND Foundation members, and $55 for non-members. The registration fee includes lunch and snacks. To register, call SHSND Administrative Assistant Kiri Stone at (701) 328-2799 or email at kstone@nd.gov.
From 9 to 9:50 a.m., Don Hofsommer will present Railroads and Dakota Colonization, about the dreamers and schemers who developed plans to populate service areas with productive people, who in turn would need goods and services from the railroads. A professor of history at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, Hofsommer has authored several books on railroad history, including The Southern Pacific and the Great Northern Railway, Minneapolis and the Age of Railways, The Tootin’ Louie, and The Hook and Eye. From 10 to 10:50 a.m., Greg Gagnon will present Northern Juggernaut: Indians, Railroads and Colonialism in ‘North Dakota,’ which will emphasize the American Indian responses to and the impacts of the railroads in Indian Country. An associate professor of Indian Studies at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, Gagnon is the author of An Indian Chapbook and Pine Ridge Reservation: Yesterday and Today. From 11 to 11:50 a.m., Frank Vyzralek will talk about The Railroad Depot in North Dakota, about the days when railroads were the primary means of transporting passengers and freight in the United States and the local railroad station – or depot – constituted each company’s office in every community which it served. Vyzralek is an independent historical researcher with his own company, Great Plains Research of Bismarck, and a former state archivist with the SHSND.
Lunch will be served from 12 noon to 12:30, followed by a session by the Old Five ‘N Dimers from Mandan, singing and relaying the history of songs of the railroad, from 12:30 to 1:20 p.m. Kelly Kiemele and Les Vaagen will perform a variety of railroad and train songs, along with background information about the songs’ origins, on guitar and banjo with vocals.
From 1:30 to 2:20 p.m., Robert Larson will present Gall, Jay Cooke, and the Northern Pacific Railroad, about the opposition of Gall and other Lakota Sioux warriors to the survey and construction of the Northern Pacific Railroad through the Yellowstone country of then-Montana Territory. His talk will focus on the contrast and conflict between Gall, Sitting Bull’s chief lieutenant, and Jay Cooke, the chief financier of the Northern Pacific, and Cooke’s proxies, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and Colonel David S. Stanley and their commands during the Yellowstone Expeditions of 1872 and 1873. An emeritus professor of history at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, Larson is the author of Gall: Lakota War Chief and Red Cloud: Warrior-Statesman of the Lakota Sioux. Concluding the presentations, from 2:30 to 3:20 p.m., will be Carroll Engelhardt, an emeritus professor of history at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. He will discuss Railroads and the Birth of Fargo and Moorhead. The Northern Pacific Railway Company founded Moorhead and Fargo in 1871 and 1872 where its tracks crossed the Red River of the North. During the next 30 years, the Northern Pacific and other railroads shaped the dual city economically, socially and politically. He is the author of Gateway to the Northern Plains: Railroads and the Birth of Fargo and Moorhead.
From 3:30 to 4 p.m., there will be a session concerning financial reimbursements for those receiving the SHSND’s Heritage Training Scholarship Funds for attending the conference. SHSND Museum Division Director Chris Johnson will help participants fill out the needed form for reimbursement. The funds are available for local and county historical society staff members to participate in training opportunities, such as the history conference. Application forms are available on the SHSND’s website at www.nd.gov/hist or by contacting Chris Johnson at (701) 328-2124 or email at cjohnson@nd.gov.The scholarship request must be approved by Johnson prior to the conference and no later than Friday, October 26.
The North Dakota Heritage Center Museum Store will be open from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday, November 2 and from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, November 3. Books by authors presenting at the conference will be available for sale. Authors Don Hofsommer, Robert Larson and Carroll Engelhardt will be available to autograph their books during the social hour Friday at 5 p.m., at the dessert and coffee at 8:30 p.m., and Saturday at 12 noon and during breaks. A special package of North Dakota History journal editions featuring railroad articles will also be available at a special price during the conference.
For more information about the history conference, visit the SHSND’s website at www.nd.gov/hist or call SHSND Curator of Education Marilyn Snyder at (701) 328-2792 or email msnyder@nd.gov. To register for any of the workshops, programs and other offerings, call SHSND Administrative Assistant Kiri Stone at (701) 328-2799 or email kstone@nd.gov.
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