In 1915 North Dakota had a bonanza wheat
Richness and prosperity was roundabout. Loud hosannas emanated throughout the land. A land boom of semi-national proportions had been born. The Duffy Brothers Land Company of Pipestone, Minnesota furnished the link between the Hammer-Condy Company of Cooperstown and the Braa family of Dell Rapids, South Dakota. The papers for sale were signed on Memorial Day of 1916. By so doing the Braas disposed of a quarter Section of improved South Dakota land in exchange for a full Section of North Dakota at $65 per acre. Besides the inflation of the War, North Dakota had another bonanza wheat crop in 1918. It brought much happiness and fresh hopes. I recall Dad speaking joyfully about each hopper dumped by the machine as placing another dollar's worth in the bin. With a forty inch Case thresher, powered by a twin cylinder Reeves steam engine caused the hoppers to come in rapid succession. Indeed the bonanza of 1918 added to the search for North Dakota land. And so they came from South Dakota, Minnesota, Illinois - they came to buy land. My grandparents Mr. and Mrs. Anders S. Braa came and bought a quarter Section about one mile west from the Section my folks had bought.
We arrived at Cooperstown aboard the Northern Pacific Branch line on March 27, 1917. There were four sons and two daughters. The thinking of the day was that all four sons would be farmers, each eventually to inherit a quarter Section of land upon which new farmsteads would be built. Was all this really the impossible dream?
I am compelled at this point to interpose a few memories of a thirteen-year-old boy in South Dakota. My folks had a 1912 Reo. It seldom went farther than to town ten miles away. One time I recall dad taking us to our one-room schoolhouse at the terrific speed of forty miles per hour. We kids were thrilled in seeing that speedometer creeping up to that magic number of forty! Radios, television and electronics were nonexistent. We had a telephone hanging on the wall. One requirement in the use of it was to crank like crazy. Many a time it was necessary to go out and crank up the old REO to get the message through. And in school the kids marveled at us as our departure time arrived - in that we would be going way up north toward the North Pole with all its ice and cold weather! They reasoned there would be hostile Indians and consequent dangers. They felt for us. According to modern thinking we were being catapulted into ORBIT. Our geography books must have been more theoretical than practical.
Our new home was known as the Old Cooper Ranch. Much emphasis was placed on the saga that eighty mule teams were hitched and sent out for miles around to do the work for the Cooper Ranch. Wagons would be hitched into long trains many times in desperation in order to get the grain in from the threshers. Next it became a larger problem to get the grain on to market. Mule teams were not capable in this task. As I recall the story Mr. R. C. Cooper made attempts at bringing in an engine - tractor- locomotive facility. Mainly for lack of suitable roads this project failed. In his continued efforts, however, Mr. Cooper constructed a roadway, which the Northern Pacific Railroad later negotiated for and on which the Northern Pacific laid the rails for the McHenry Branch Line. Oh yes, the Old Cooper Ranch was rich in historical lore and we kids were enriched in the glamour of it all.
As I recall it now, the Braas moved away from the Cooper Ranch in 1930 to a small farm near Dazey.
The dream of any of the Braa boys becoming landowners by inheritance was a lost cause. I might mention as it had been reported to me years ago that the land my folks bought at $65 per acre in 1916 was finally purchased by the renter somewhere in the mid 1930s at $14.50 per acre. That I believe gives credence to the axiom that ROLLING STONES GATHER NO MOSS. With modernized tractor power, commercial fertilizer and effective weed control the land has been made productive. With proper management, PLOW, PLANT AND PROSPER is the correct formula for success.
In conclusion I wish to indicate some of the benefits that came to me personally because of the land boom of 1916. Cooperstown High School was a mere three and a half miles away from our home. On my way to school I usually ran across the fields. That made the miles shorter. The closeness to a high school gave me splendid opportunities for more education. Such opportunities were not in the thinking as circumstances were in our South Dakota home. At that point in time a high school education was not considered for farm boys. Obviously the nearness of Cooperstown High School furnished a much-needed transition for this farm boy. I think back with the deepest gratitude to Superintendent F. Ray Rogers, Principal Erma Armstrong, coach and chemistry teacher Edmund Bryant, and to Mrs. Porterville from whom I received social sciences. Others might well be mentioned, however, these four I believed displayed to me the golden sheaves of wealth that were lodged in the wheat lands of Griggs County in the state of North Dakota.
Source: Griggs County History 1879 - 1976 page 268