It Was Bigger Than Both of Us,

by James R. Hartnett

Ralph Cunningham came back from the dead, rising up through the sawdust that came from the cottonwood that came from out of the sawmills down by where Atokad, Dakota County's racetrack (horses had negotiated a final turn long ago; hoof tracks were covered by bright concrete slabs upon which sat pools of black oil dripping from semis and tractor trailers) used to be, not that far from a muddy-brown Crystal Lake (some folks say before the Big Flood in '52 was blue and crystal clear) and said to me, tapping me on the shoulder, patting me on the head , “How did it all begin?”

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They Gave Their Lives in Dakota County

by Dan Nieman

When the United States headed into World War II the airline industry was just out of infancy.  Only twelve years earlier, Charles Lindbergh flew the Spirit of St. Louis across the Atlantic Ocean.

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Free Bird

by James R. Hartnett

Seated in the room
Taking flight, making sail
High above the clouds
       Bright Indian summer afternoon, across the table in the stiff bright blue chair that had a small piece missing from one leg. He didn’t sit quite level but it was taller than the green one. He had switched chairs before their lesson was to begin. Movement by the body and conversation from the head were slightly tilted, hands moving rapidly beneath the table.
       Boy and teacher were going over some social studies questions the answer to which neither knew nor could readily find.

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The 1952 Flood: The Easter Flood

It is easy as we live our day-to-day lives to think that our individual worlds are quite small.  When one considers something like a flood, it is even more probable that a people will see their fight to survive an act of nature as a particularly lonely one.  The 1952 flood of the Missouri River that decimated much of Dakota County was not such an event.  The Missouri River Flood of 1952 was one which engulfed the Mississippi, Missouri, and Upper Red River Basins.  Areas of the American Southwest and California experienced significant flooding, as did large parts of the United Kingdom.

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Hart or Capone: A Reinvented Life

by Dan Nieman

In the Old West, pop culture imitated a version of real life.  Dime store novels wrote romantic accounts of the wild west.  Later Buffalo Bill, who made his livelihood hunting buffalo for the railroads, gathered many of the characters he knew to make a second life as wild west performers.  Years later, Josephine Earp told her and her husband’s stories to the early Hollywood movie producers, who kept the stories of the old west alive in popular western movies.  These are not necessarily true depictions, but they created a story that people wanted to hear.  Vincenzo Capone managed to do the exact opposite.  He remade himself from an Italian immigrant to a real life western hero.


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Marvin Miller on Living and Working in Dakota County in the 1940s & 50s

In this article Marvin Miller shares several remembrances of his early work life in Dakota County in the 1940s and 1950s.  They are shared to show how times have changed.
Blyburg
Blyburg is by the hills of Homer, past the O’Connor house.  My maternal family, O’Dell, were from there.  About 1944 when I was in high school, my uncles Walt and Hank Laird got me a job working for a rich and large land owner named Boyle.  The son’s name was Tiny Boyle.  Indians were hired to how corn, and my job was to watch them and keep them working.  It was rather scary, as they would talk Indian language.  I got to sleep and eat in the house.  The indians ate outside and slept in the barn.

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The 1932 Nebraska All Stars

-By Dan Nieman

Baseball is a perfect game for the plains of Nebraska.  All it takes is a ball, a bat, a big field, and nine  people to play.  No wonder it was America’s pastime.  It was the pastime for many in Dakota City, Nebraska, as well.

In the summer of 1932 the people of America in general and Dakota City in particular needed a diversion from the world’s problems.  ‘32 was the height of the Great Depression.  Times were hard and because of prohibition one could not even get a legal beer to unwind.  The people of Dakota City were eager for a new season.

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