In the westward expansion of the American people the main lines of railways were built east and west. There were great numbers of people coming into the new country, and frequently it was necessary to cross from one line of railroad to another without going clear to St. Paul to make connections. Columbia on the Northwestern and Jamestown on the Northern Pacific were important points in the early history of this region. A stage line up the James river to connect these two towns was established by a man named Benjamine in 1880. This was the first line to cross what is now Dickey County. The route was laid out up the east side of the James to the vicinity of Grand Rapids, and from that new town on to Jamestown.  Benjamine had been a government freighter in Nebraska and other places on the plains, so was well prepared to establish and operate the new line. He had his office in Jamestown, had one rig, and a Mr. Mellinger was the only driver. The stage would leave Jamestown in the morning and reach Grand Rapids for the night. The next day it would reach Columbia, taking two days each way for the trip. Very soon it was found necessary to have stations between the night stopping places, where fresh horses could be had. The relay station between Grand Rapids and Columbia was located at the crossing of Bear Creek where the farm buildings of John Nelson are now located, on the northeast corner of Section 8-131-59.

The house was up on the hill where it could be seen and easily located by travelers or the driver of the stage line in a storm. They had a big pole set in the ground near the house and at night would hoist up a railroad lantern so that the driver could find his way in, as in bad weather sometimes the stage could only make this station in time to stop over night. The house was a frame one, fourteen by sixteen feet with eight foot posts, built from lumber brought down from Jamestown.   The barn was a dug-out built in the east bank of the hill and roofed with poles drawn from Grand Rapids, and over which was placed a covering of hay. It had one end covered with a shingled roof to provide a place for his harness and feed.

Benjamine owned land near the station and on his tree claim there was a good stand of grass where they made hay for the stock that was kept at the station. Mellinger took a claim and afterward became the possessor of considerable property. Benjamine speculated in wheat and lost his money and had to work for his old driver in order to make a living. In April, 1882, a man by the name of Mills located on the site of what afterward became the city of Oakes, but spent most of his time working at the relay station taking care of the stock. Mons Nelson located on the southwest of Section 4 and worked at the relay station.

The stage carried many passengers and brought the mail for the places on its line, but when the railroad was built in to Kllendale in 1882 that part of this old stage route from Columbia to Grand Rapids went out of business.  It had served some Dickey County people with mail from the relay station, but the location of new post offices and railroads superseded it and it soon became only a memory to a few people.

When the railroad into Ellendale established passenger service that way a new stage route was located from that town to Grand Rapids. This line took the shortest route along the railroad right of way past the Bishop place to the bend of the west fork of the Maple northeast of the later Boynton where it would ford the river and go into Keystone on Section 10 of that township. It crossed the north fork north of old Keystone and three miles further on passed the "Half Way House" from where it continued to the county line in the corner of Valley and Porter townships. For a time in 1883 the line went directly east from Keystone for two and a half miles, then northeast to LaMoure. The "Half Way House" was the home of the Stevenson family which almost by accident became a well known stopping place for dinner for those who were traveling by stage. The story of Valley township tells how this occurred.

When the Grand Rapids stage was routed over another line Keystone was supplied by a mail route from Ellendale. To accommodate the new settlers in the Merricourt neighborhood a post office was established at the claim house of a settler about three miles northwest of where Merricourt is now located, and the mail for this office was brought up by the Ellendale-Keystone mail carrier and out to the Merricourt office. After Monango was located the Merricourt mail was brought out from there until the Soo line built in to Merricourt.

Yorktown was settled in 1883 and a post office established there but for a time no provision was made to carry the mail regularly. The settlers were taking turns in bringing the mail from Ellendale, or any one who was in town would bring it out in a grain sack. But when the Northern Pacific built into LaMoure the stage line which had been going through Keystone was changed to run by way of Yorktown. Martin & Strane, an enterprising pair of young men who had a livery barn, a hotel and an implement store in Ellendale had the contract for carrying the mail over the Grand Rapids line and were transferred to the line to LaMoure.

The route of this new line was out of Ellendale almost due northeast.  It did rot have to follow section lines or deviate from its course except where some settler had a crop growing or where sloughs made it necessary to drive around them. It went on the section line past the place known as the Emery Ranch where it went a half mile east then up the quarter line to the center of the section and then northeast again. It went through Yorktown to the corner of the section on which that settlement was located then due north to the county line.

Charles Saunders and L. H. Hull were two of the early drivers over this route. They used a sort of bus, not a regulation stage, but a rig with three seats and a canvass cover. They used two horses at a time, and would drive out of Ellendale in the morning to Yorktown, then taking a fresh team from the Morey barn would go on to LaMoure. Here they would take dinner and with a fresh team drive back to Yorktown, change to the team they had .driven 'that morning and come into Ellendale. It made a round trip of seventy-two miles and was not an easy day's work for the driver.

The life of a stage driver had some picturesque features, but times had changed and a. higher type of civilization was found in this new country.  Travel was heavy and on the Grand Rapids line they had to use four horses some of the time. One morning Everest Gray was in Ellendale about the time for the stage to pull out for Grand Rapids. The man who had been driving on this line was drunk, and one of the managers, Martin or Strane, saw Everett near by and called out, "Can you drive four horses?" Mr. Gray promptly said, "Yes, of course", although he had never done it. Anyhow he soon found himself perched on the seat of a Concord stage bound for Grand Rapids. He knew if he could get out on the road without an accident he could get along. He drove the leaders and let the wheelers follow and got along all right.  He drove for several months and after a few trips learned to handle the four lines as well as any one. The stage usually had six to eight passengers; the baggage was carried in the boot and on the top, one passenger with the driver and the others inside. There were all kinds of people traveling; drunks and preachers, lawyers and laborers, and every other kind. The fare was four dollars from Grand Rapids to Ellendale by way of Keystone, and after LaMoure was established they went into that town for a time and then on to Grand Rapids, fording the river near LaMoure twice in order to reach it.

Charles Saunders on the Yorktown line had a nervous time one morning when starting out of Yorktown. A "tough bird" as he called him, had been hanging around and the hotel man warned Saunders to be on the lookout when starting out of town. Saunders was driving a pair of cayuses and they whipped out pretty fast as they went past an old sod barn. The tough "guy" stepped out but he was too slow and the stage did not stop for him.  Later, he was arrested ("picked up") for robbing his partners of a valuable bunch of furs.

The weather sometimes bothered, and with uncertain roads it would sometimes be as late as eight o'clock when the stage would reach Ellendale, but Mr. Saunders missed only one trip. That time he left Yorktown to go to Ellendale and ran into a storm. On this trip he had no passengers. His horses swung up to a shack by the road and stopped. He looked out and knew the place and started his team again for Ellendale. After a while the horses stopped again and Mr. Saunders found he was at the same shack again. He looked at his watch, gave the horses a cut to go on the road and started out the third time. Again the horses swung off the road and in fifteen minutes were back at the shack again. This time Mr. Saunders un-hitched, led one horse inside to test the floor, then brought in the other, opened a straw tick to feed the horses from it, then blanketed the animals and laid down in his buffalo robe and went to sleep. When he awoke the sun was shining in his eyes through a knot hole and the storm was over, so he hitched up and drove into Ellendale.

For his services as stage driver he received $14.00 a month and his board and room. The fare from Ellendale to LaMoure was three dollars, and the driver was collector, conductor, brakeman and guide. This stage had to ford the Maple river when the ice went out in the spring. The drivers knew where they could find good bottom and would push in and flounder across.  They had a bridge most of the time, but when it was out of order or gone they forded. At places they had put rocks in the river to make a good bottom. These drivers were heroic men and hardly ever missed a trip in bad weather. Bundled up in his big fur coat, cap and mitts, cold weather and severe storms would not deter him. Saunders, Gray, Hull, Sutley and others were men who helped bring the benefits of civilization to this country, and Jackson Strane, an early sheriff, backed the enterprise that brought connection between the homesteader and his friends back home.

Settlers to the west of the Milwaukee line to Ellendale needed mail services and several lines were run from the towns along this railroad. J. V.  McMillan got a contract to take the mail between Ellendale and Bismarck.  He knew in a general way where the route was to run. George Cochran took out the ponies for the relay stations and was the first driver. The line ran west from Ellendale about three miles then over to the north township line and west to Coldwater Lake in McIntosh county then on south of Kislingberry Springs to the northeast corner of Hoskins Lake, then to the north-west to Bismarck. At first there was no stopping place except a settler's home at Hoskins Lake. The driver stopped for the night wherever darkness overtook him and made himself as comfortable as he could with the equipment he carried on the stage. If he were fortunate enough to reach the shack of a settler he found a stopping place with him.

In 1883, Mr. J. H. McCIure, a man from Monmouth, Illinois, got the job of carrying the mail over this route. The line was changed about this time to run to Ft. Yates. Ditto, an old Texas man, and Mat Gray had come up with Mr. McCIure and were also connected with the stage line, Gray doing considerable of the driving. There was only one rig and this would leave Ellendale one morning and would make Hoskins Lake that night. The next day the stage would go on to Fort Yates, delivering the mail at the log building at Winona where the post-office was kept. The day after this the stage would leave Winona in the morning and reach Hoskins Lake that night and come on to Ellendale the next day, using four days for the round trip.  They used a three seated spring wagon to carry the mail and occasionally a passenger, and did not try to run in the winter. In this year of 1883 the place at Hoskins Lake was made a regular stopping place, as lumber was drawn out from Ellendale and a good frame shanty built. There was no stable, but a corral was built of poles. There were some trees on the lake shore and a spring furnished water.

Mr. Bariah Magoffin, a Kentucky colonel, had bid off some of the mail contracts along the Milwaukee line and took the mail contract to Hoskins in 1886. Eb Magoffin, the son, had to do the driving for several weeks be-fore they could get a satisfactory bidder to take over the contract. They were using a "democrat" wagon and had four horses for the line. By this time Mr. Bacey had established his ranch at Coldwater Lake and a post-office known as Coldwater was established with Mr. Bacey as postmaster.  The mail stage would start out of Ellendale in the morning and drive to Bacey's ranch where they could get dinner and a fresh team, then drive to Hoskins' and stay over night; then the next day drive back to Ellendale.  The trip now took two days, as the line from Hoskins' to Fort Yates had been discontinued. The stage passed Lorraine post office east of the hills where they would leave mail, and there was a post office at a farm house between Hoskins' and Coldwater. The fare on the stage was $3.00 from Ellendale to Hoskins' and the passengers paid for their own dinners.

Several contractors had this line in the following years, and several different drivers ran the stage. A new post office, Pierson, was established north of Lorraine on Section 18 of Township 130-64. Lorraine post office was kept by Theodore Gray and the mail was sent from Lorraine to Pierson by Hugh Gallager who lived about half way between the two offices. When Gallagher himself was too busy in harvest he sent one of his girls to carry the mail bag.

In 1897 Franklin had the contract for hauling the mail to Ashley and he hired John Kosel to drive the stage for him. Mr. Kosel had a claim about four and a half miles east of Coldwater. He got $700.00 a year from Franklin and whatever he could get for hauling passengers and freight. He handled what he could in his buggy, charging $2.00 each for passengers from Ellendale to Ashley. A new post office had been established near his place, known as Albertha, and Mr. Kosel would take the mail from Albertha to Ellendale, stopping at Lorraine; then in the afternoon he would drive back to Albertha and his home. The next day he would take the mail from Albertha to Coldwater and Ashley, returning home the same day.   It took from six in the morning to six at night to make the return trip, especially on the Ellendale end. Some winter mornings he was out of the hills on the way to Ellendale by the time the sun was up.

Mr. V. E. Haskins, a neighbor in the township north from Mr. Kosel had the driver's job for some years. He followed the same plan as Mr.  Kosel, taking two days for the round trip but being at home every night.  At this time the route went west for about two miles from Ellendale, then over to the township line and into the hills about where the new state highway is located.

Later the railroad was extended to the new town of Forbes and the post offices at Lorraine and Pierson were discontinued; Albertha post office dropped out and a new office at Wirch was established, with most of the people served by the old post office getting their mail at Forbes. The stage line was continued until 1910. The laying out of new highways and their completion in 1926 saw the establishment of an auto bus line through Ellendale and Ashley to Bismarck, but the days of the old frontier stages have passed.

There was also a mail and stage line from Ellendale to Port Emma and later to Ludden and connection made to Milnor, which brought out mail for the settlers around these towns and the newer settlements that later found themselves on the Great Northern. In all these small towns the arrival of the stage was the event of the day. It brought the mail and occasionally a passenger, and the driver brought any news that had come too late for the papers or the letters.

The post offices in Dickey County have been as follows: Ellendale established early in 1882; Keystone on April 6, 1882; Port Emma also in 1882; Hudson in May of 1883; Ludden (old town) July 2^nd, 1883; Eaton, Yorktown, Ticeville and Merricourt, all in 1883; Weston on October 18^th, 1883; Ulness in 1884, afterwards becoming Glover in 1887; Wright about the same time; Ludden (new town) in 1886; Oakes on Sept. 6^th, 1886; Guelph in 1887; Fullerton in October, 1888; Clement on August 24^th, 1888; Silverleaf in 1887; Lorraine in 1897; Pierson on Feb. 16^th, 1898; Wirch in 1900;

Albertha in 1896; Forbes in 1905; Wolf in 1910. In the southeastern part of the county mail has been received from the post office of Frederick and Hecla, South Dakota, and the rural delivery has supplied mail to Dickey county residents from LaMoure and Kulm. For some time the Alpha, S. D. post office was supplied out of Ellendale. By 1912 the number of post offices in the county had been reduced to twelve.

Soon after the first settlers began to come to this region some one thought of carrying the goods and supplies by water. A boat was built at Columbia in 1883-1884 from lumber freighted down from Jamestown. The boat which was named the "Nettie Baldwin" from the daughter of a Columbia banker, was in commission for something over two years. It was a flat-bottomed scow drawing only a few feet of water, a sternwheeler, very difficult to steer because it would swing from side to side. The shape and handling of the boat was such that in rough weather it was difficult to protect the cargo, and in its last season it spoiled a cargo of flax by getting it wet. It carried its load on the deck, and when not carrying much freight it could carry twenty-five passengers. Its first arrival at Port Emma was on April 17^th, 1884, and the fact that this place was a port of call gave the town its new name. The steamer went up as far as Hudson, coming up one day, remaining over night and going back the next day. On some occasions it went up to LaMoure.

When it came to building bridges across the James it was a question as to whether it was a navigable river. Most people considered it was not but the steamboat operators held that they were actually navigating it and objected to have bridges built without a draw. In 1886 a bridge was built at Port Emma. The captain of the steamer to make a demonstration and force the authorities to put in a drawbridge, came up the river and was preparing to whistle for the draw when he ran aground in the mud and could not get up within whistling distance of the bridge. That fall the steamboat transported some grain down river but went out of commission; its engine and boilers were removed and its hull laid up at Columbia. 

Another interesting attempt to navigate this river was tried as late as 1912 and 1914. Mr. A. H. Alexanderson had been working on the Benton Packet Line out of Bismarck and was interested in boating. In 1909 he was doing carpenter work in LaMoure and Dickey counties, and conceived the idea of building a boat on the James. His boat was to be eleven feet wide at the bottom, 16 feet at the top, and sixty-one feet long, but these dimensions had to be changed to let the boat through some of the bridges. The work of construction was done on the south bank of Bear Creek near the N. P. bridge a mile and a half north of Oakes. The boat was launched about the middle of July, 1910. The work was well done and the boat drew only about a foot of water with all its machinery aboard. It had to be floated down Bear Creek to the James, where it was first put into commission about the first of June, 1912. Five excursions from the bridge west of Oakes were run that year, and some excursions from LaMoure and other points on the river were made. The boat attracted much attention and many people took a ride in this novel way. The captain lived on it the summer of 1912 and again in 1913 when one or more excursions were run, but the water was low that year.

On July 4, 1914 the boat made its last trip when it took a picnic party from Mr. Jacobson's to the grounds at Wright's grove, a distance of fourteen miles in an hour and a half. That night the boat was taken back to the starting point about five miles below LaMoure, where later it was pulled up on the bank and taken apart for the material to be used for other purposes.  This was the end of the "Wander Land". Another boat was built by Captain Alexanderson at this place below LaMoure in 1914 and named, "The Red Wing". This was a smaller boat than the "Wander Land" and was run on the river in 1915 and 1916, and in 1916 was taken down river to Columbia where it was still in service in 1925.

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