The Need for a New County: Crosby, at the "old Crosby site", was a new and up-coming village, awaiting the arrival of the Soo Line railroad which got here in 1906. At that time Crosby was in Williams County. Early-day promotional publicity described it as "the banner city of Williams County." Williston, of course, was the well-established county seat of that very large county. Crosby's only hope of carving out a future as a county seat was to engineer a favorable division of the county and then ballot its way to victory in a county seat contest. The fight to make a separate county of "Divide" by taking a northern slice off of Williams was started in 1908. The effort that year lost, because Williston was able to control enough votes to defeat any of the proposed plans for dividing the county. But the effort was continued, and it was largely a coordinated effort of businessmen from Ambrose, Plumer and Crosby which helped bring about the eventual separation of Divide County.
Attempt at a Three-Way Split: The Crosby group went to Ray and proposed to the business men of Ray that a three-way division be made: Divide county in the north; Lincoln county on the east with Ray as county seat; and Williston on the west with only a small area left as its part of the division. The slogan for this proposal was "Divide County, Lincoln County or none."
The 1910 Election - Divide County is Born: Leaders in Williston then saw that they could not control the vote any longer. A deputation came to Crosby and proposed to divide the territory between Williams county and Divide county. At the 1910 election it was then voted to make two counties of the area, one that would be the present Williams county and the other, Divide. The first victory was won in 1910, when voters approved the county division.
A Visit to Governor Burke: After the division of the counties was settled, it was then necessary for the governor to appoint county commissioners for the new county. These commissioners would have the important task of selecting the temporary county seat. Ambrose, Noonan and Crosby were the contending towns for county seat of Divide County. Ambrose sent a large delegation to Bismarck. A delegation headed by Charles Perry, a conductor on the Great Northern railway, went from Crosby. It seemed that all was lost when the group from Crosby tried to see Governor John Burke. Perry told the Crosby delegation that he would try to handle the situation, and told them to wait until the governor went home to eat supper because the governor would not give them a formal audience that day. At the time the governor was leaving the office to go home, Charles Perry stepped forward and said, "Hello, John”. The governor said, "Well, if it isn't my old friend Charlie," and invited Perry to supper. The group from Ambrose, standing around and jeering at the attempts by the Crosby group to gain entrance to the governor's office, wondered if this was the end of their bid for the selection of the county commissioners. Charles Perry was able to persuade the governor to give his group a break in selecting the first county commissioners. The three men chosen were Bert McKee of Noonan, Charles Perry of Crosby, and Mac Colgan of Colgan. Governor Burke did not select any of the Ambrose group, but conceded that someone should represent the western part of the county in his selection of Mac Colgan.
The Vote for a Temporary County Seat: Mac Colgan first voted for Ambrose when the time came for voting for temporary county seat. Charles Perry voted for Crosby and Bert McKee voted for Noonan. When talk of a compromise was started, Colgan said, "I'll never vote for the poor town of Noonan." McKee then voted for Crosby, and Crosby was settled as the temporary county seat by a two-to-one vote. The commissioners appointed the following as the first county officers:
The Campaign for the Permanent County Seat: Dr. Blake Lancaster was one of the champions of Crosby for the county seat. He was the first doctor in Crosby and came in August 1905. Lancaster did the organizing for the campaign to vote for Crosby as permanent county seat. Charley Clark, a banker and early-day dealer in horses, was one of the principal figures in the county seat campaign. Clark had to organize shifts for guarding the courthouse records every night, because the Ambrose group was trying to steal them and take them to Ambrose.
The 1912 Election - Crosby Wins by Three Votes: A day was set for the election in the winter of 1912. It was expected to be a very close battle but Dr. Lancaster had promoted telephone service to many parts of the county. These lines were running out from Crosby, and it was expected that telephones would promote a better relationship between early settlers and Crosby than anything the groups from Ambrose and Noonan could do. These crude rural telephone lines, built as a vote-attracting project, are credited with very possibly saving the day for Crosby. Anyhow, some voters said that they "followed the poles to the polls." The ensuing election, a hot one on a cold and stormy day, was won by the Crosby group by a margin of three votes, in a contest in which Noonan and Ambrose were the other contenders.
Ambrose Loses to Mother Nature: On the day of the election there was a terrible snow storm. Dr. Lancaster and Clark were calling up all of their reliable supporters on the phone and urging them to go to the township halls and cast their votes. A group of settlers east of Crosby, including Henry and Anton Jacobson, Orlando Henderson and six others in that area, were almost stymied by the storm, but they followed the telephone poles and thus were able to make their way from home to the township hall. The storm was county-wide. The Ambrose men decided to hold the election over and vote the following day. The late votes were not allowed when the vote was canvassed, and Crosby was selected for county seat by a margin of three votes. - Minot Daily News
History taken
from pages 345-346 of the |
