Latest / Ridiculous History / Fort Sauerkraut: North Dakota’s Strange, Ill-Planned Origin Story

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Fort Sauerkraut: North Dakota’s Strange, Ill-Planned Origin Story · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: much for tuning it. Let's hear it for the Man,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: the Myth, the Demi God, our super producer, mister Max Williams.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Max Kroutman Williams, Max Kroudrock Williams.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: There we go, and those funds are coming to us
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: from none other than the one and only mister Noel
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Brown right.
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  Speaker 2: Noel croud Rock Brown Right.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: They call me Ben Bullen for tax.
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  Speaker 2: Purpose, Croudrock Bully. If anybody think I'm being slurry. Kroud
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: rock is a widely accepted genre of music.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: It's a real thing.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: It's a real thing, like the band can or Noy.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: A lot of they use what Alex Williams often loves
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: to refer to as motoric beats, very repetitive and kind
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: of trancy, really really great stuff, huge can fam Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: the encounter what.
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  Speaker 1: I would call similar to semantic satiation, a kind of
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  Speaker 1: rhythmic satiation. It'g strd to get lost in the beat.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: We're not talking about kroud rock today. We are talking
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: about sour kraut, but perhaps not in the way you
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: imagine this is one. In our continuing conversation with Souf
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: John Stevens, we are so close to doing one episode
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: of at least one episode about every state in the
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: United States of America.
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  Speaker 2: I thought we'd done done that. Okay, I guess we're
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  Speaker 2: not yet.
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  Speaker 1: We're very first. Where As the first for North Dakota,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: there's pen ultimates one. This is the second to last.
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  Speaker 2: We have one left. And what is it? Oh no, okay, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: I don't know the answer, so we'll be surprised together.
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  Speaker 1: So our second to last one is North Dakota. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: most of us in the audience tonight, statistically speaking, have
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  Speaker 1: not visited North Dakota. It is one of the most
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  Speaker 1: sparsely populated states in the Union County in Alaska.
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  Speaker 2: Is that where Fargo is?
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  Speaker 1: Fargo is in North.
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  Speaker 2: Dakota, okay, okay. Famously depicted in the Coen Brothers film
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  Speaker 2: of the same name, where everyone talks like they're from
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  Speaker 2: Minnesota because it was the closest accents, most recognizable and
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  Speaker 2: quirky accent that they could they could come up with. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: which great, Yeah, people don't really talk that in North Dakota.
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  Speaker 1: Phenomenal phenomenal series yeah, for the for the few series
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  Speaker 1: is living North Dakota. In's in the crowd tonight you
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  Speaker 1: should you already know Fargo is by far the most
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  Speaker 1: populous city in North.
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  Speaker 2: Dakota, and justin I have been just to give us.
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  Speaker 1: All a sense of how how few people were talking
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  Speaker 1: about the population of Fargo was estimated to be a
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  Speaker 1: little bit north of one hundred and thirty six thousand
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  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, watch out for wood shippers, That's all I'll say about.
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  Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, and watch out for you know if in
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  Speaker 1: the if you're in a Fargo series and you meet
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: anybody who looks remotely like Billy Bob Thornton, do not
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  Speaker 1: trust them. Cass right, man, what North Dakota. So we
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  Speaker 1: said what we say, a little bit, a little bit
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  Speaker 1: south of one hundred and forty thousand for Fargo. This
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  Speaker 1: is the thing I almost say country. It is a
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  Speaker 1: land to itself. The population of the state entire as
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  Speaker 1: of last year was still less than eight hundred thousand people.
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  Speaker 1: And it's a very big place. It's a place that
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  Speaker 1: often gets ignored in a lot of conversations. Here's how
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  Speaker 1: we get to today's episode. Our North Dakota episode courtesy
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  Speaker 1: of our research associate Max Williams, because of racism, paranoia,
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  Speaker 1: and as Max puts it, an able supply of fermented cabbage,
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  Speaker 1: which we'll get to. Or the German originated homesteaders of Hebron,
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  Speaker 1: North Dakota have brought us this episode about the thirty
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  Speaker 1: ninth state in the country.
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  Speaker 2: They brought it to us in a series of Mason jars.
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  Speaker 1: Right, just like Alex Williams, and is infamous homage to
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  Speaker 1: George Washington's nog so all right, nog and crowd noging
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  Speaker 1: krout classic Alex. So if we go to our friends
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  Speaker 1: at Britannica, we'll see that Europeans are largely acknowledged to
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  Speaker 1: have reached the territory of what we call present day
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  Speaker 1: North Dakota in the mid seventeen hundreds. That might surprise
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  Speaker 1: some people because it's pretty far west. But when they
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  Speaker 1: went there, this place was already around. It was already
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  Speaker 1: well populated by various indigenous or tribes or first peoples.
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  Speaker 1: The Mandon, the Hidasa, the Arakawa were settled along the
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  Speaker 1: Missouri River.
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  Speaker 2: The Ojibwa, who were locally referred to as the Chippewa
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  Speaker 2: or Anishinabe as well as the Cree, not to be
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  Speaker 2: confused with the the adverse serial race of aliens from
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  Speaker 2: the Marvel Universe.
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  Speaker 1: Right yeah, and are they adversarial or are they looking
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  Speaker 1: out for themselves?
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  Speaker 3: Oh?
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  Speaker 2: Good car? Are they the ones from the Secret War?
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  Speaker 2: The Creed?
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  Speaker 1: There are? The three are a famous cosmic cosmic empire
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: in the Marvel Universe.
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  Speaker 2: I just remember them from the Guardians of the Galaxy.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, and there they were sort of coded as
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  Speaker 1: fundamentalist or religious extremist, like.
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  Speaker 2: Bor they want to assimilate. They were very aggressive conquerors
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  Speaker 2: kind of right.
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  Speaker 1: Well, the thing that bothered me about the way the
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  Speaker 1: Kreer represents did not intend for this to happen today,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: we're all The way the Cree are represented in the
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Guardians of the Galaxy is problematic because one of the
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: prime antagonists, a guy named Ronan the Accuser. Uh you'll
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: see leap is, yes, you'll an actor. You will see
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  Speaker 1: him being prepared for his day as a villain in
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  Speaker 1: a way that is a very similar to the way
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  Speaker 1: the royalty in Gulf countries are are dressed up for
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  Speaker 1: the day like people. He has attendants who are perfuming
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  Speaker 1: him and putting yeah, yeah, yeah, they are. They are
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: for there's a better word for it, but they are
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  Speaker 1: baptizing him a little bit in precious oils and sprayed
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: aromatics and powders support him anyway. The cree Are decree
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  Speaker 1: in Marvel Covicdom is not what we're talking about there.
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  Speaker 2: It's not. But that was a very respectable aside.
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  Speaker 1: If it's a phenomenal franchise to please check it out
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  Speaker 1: if you haven't had a chance to watch. Alongside these
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  Speaker 1: groups we've named earlier, there were other civilizations groups of Sioux,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: the Sinebon, the Yanktoneton, the Teton. They inhabited areas in
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  Speaker 1: the north, southeast and west of this region. Again we're
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  Speaker 1: getting that from Britannica. The first encounters were largely meet
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  Speaker 1: and greets, mercantile things, French Canadian fur traders, and then
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  Speaker 1: folks like Lewis and Clark. They passed through what would
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  Speaker 1: become Dakota in eighteen oh four.
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  Speaker 2: Oh and if you I think we mentioned before, if
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  Speaker 2: you want to fun sci fi spin on that, do
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: check out Manifest Destiny, the comic book series.
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  Speaker 1: Oh yes, man, I love that. Have you checked that
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  Speaker 1: one out?
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  Speaker 2: I've only read the first handful of issues, but I
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  Speaker 2: need to get back to it. It's very very cool.
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  Speaker 1: It's so cool. Do check it out, and remember it's
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  Speaker 1: a work of fiction, but it is very loosely based
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  Speaker 1: on fact, and.
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  Speaker 2: It's commenting on a lot of the things that we're
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  Speaker 2: talking about right here in terms of the like the
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  Speaker 2: ick of it all very much so.
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  Speaker 1: And as the story goes, our pals Lewis and Clark
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  Speaker 1: are really impressed with how friendly the locals are. They
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  Speaker 1: end up constructing Fort Mandan a n d An pardon
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  Speaker 1: any accidental Mandarin on my part, and there they spent
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  Speaker 1: the winter of eighteen oh four to eighteen oh five.
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  Speaker 1: But manifest destiny, to your point, Noel was very much
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  Speaker 1: a priority of the American experiment, So these newly minted
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  Speaker 1: Americans started getting more and more into the territory. They
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  Speaker 1: were invaders who called themselves settlers. If that sounds familiar,
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  Speaker 1: yeah it does.
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  Speaker 2: And we're not here to rag on the conquering Europeans
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  Speaker 2: too too much, but I mean it's hard to talk
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  Speaker 2: about it without at least giving it a mention. I know,
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  Speaker 2: people give us flax some time, a being like, oh,
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  Speaker 2: back in the day, things are so problematic. Well they were,
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  Speaker 2: they were, but that's.
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  Speaker 1: Not what we're Everybody smelled bad. Disease was rampant, people
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  Speaker 1: with hungry. Your favorite beat me here, Max, your favorite
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  Speaker 1: world leaders got punked by groups of rabbits. Okay, that's
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  Speaker 1: how history is.
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  Speaker 2: I know, and and and I know how history repeats itself.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, to jump in here, future historians are probably gonna
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  Speaker 3: be talking about these current times like that as well.
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  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, somebody off me saying that.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I hear
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  Speaker 1: that people have feelings, but I'm not familiar with that
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  Speaker 1: on a personal level. We know that. Look, we know
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  Speaker 1: that again, as you were saying, old tale as old
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  Speaker 1: as time. These new invasions or these new encroaching populations
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  Speaker 1: bring in new culture. They bring in unfamiliar technology, unfamiliar
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  Speaker 1: diseases and vices. When the eighteen twenties and the eighteen thirties,
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  Speaker 1: these American traders t r a d Ers are bringing
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  Speaker 1: in guns, kettles, manufactured goods like axes, blankets. They're also
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  Speaker 1: bringing manufactured goods like liquor, and they're accidentally bringing things
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  Speaker 1: like disease.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, accidentally, for sure, but also you know the
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  Speaker 2: old theory, there's that, for sure, but at the very
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  Speaker 2: least not really given to flips about who would get
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  Speaker 2: hurt by their presence and behavior.
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  Speaker 1: Right because for the most part, outside of a few missionaries,
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  Speaker 1: these folks aren't thinking of the existing population as fellow
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  Speaker 1: human beings. And there's an economic sea change, a paradigm shift.
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  Speaker 1: Native Americans become dependent upon these traders in their trade
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  Speaker 1: networks for supplies, and in the process of exposure to disease,
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  Speaker 1: exposure to hard alcohol, things like that, a lot of
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  Speaker 1: people who are totally innocent die. The smallpox epidemic in
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  Speaker 1: eighteen thirty seven, just this initial exposure reduced the Mandan
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  Speaker 1: population of North Dakota from about eighteen hundred to one
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  Speaker 1: hundred and twenty five in less than a year, in
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  Speaker 1: just a few months. And these folks who were previously
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  Speaker 1: you know it, lived there for thousands of years. These
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  Speaker 1: folks previously welcomed newcomers, but they began to grow more
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  Speaker 1: hostile when they said, hey, maybe the new guys don't
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  Speaker 1: have our best interest at heart, maybe their vibe is
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  Speaker 1: fake or manufactured. And steamboat traffic increases because gold is
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  Speaker 1: discovered in Montana in eighteen sixty two, and so the
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  Speaker 1: US Army, again still kind of newly minted, starts building
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  Speaker 1: forts along the river to protect these resources, that's right.
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  Speaker 2: And in eighteen seventy six, Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer,
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  Speaker 2: who you may have heard of, along with the seventh Cavalry,
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  Speaker 2: set out from Fort Abraham Lincoln just a little bit
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  Speaker 2: south of present day Mandan. And this is again coming
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  Speaker 2: from our pals over a Britannica. I'm paraphrasing loosely here,
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  Speaker 2: So in order to set out for a very very
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  Speaker 2: very fortuitous encounter with the Sioux and the Cheyenne at
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  Speaker 2: a pretty famous altercation called the Battle of Little Bighorn
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  Speaker 2: be one of my favorite oxymorons, by the way, which
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  Speaker 2: was fought in present day Montana.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and as we know, things didn't work out for George,
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  Speaker 1: but one dead colonel doesn't stop the show, and it
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  Speaker 1: definitely never stopped Uncle Sam. So the westward expansion continues.
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  Speaker 1: The fur trade is starting to decline by the eighteen sixties,
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  Speaker 1: you know, well, for the Fateful days of Custer and
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  Speaker 1: Anglo's settlement begins in earnest in eighteen seventy one, partially
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  Speaker 1: due to the fact that railroads have reached the Red
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  Speaker 1: River from Saint Paul and Duluth, Minnesota. So we get
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  Speaker 1: a bunch of pioneers who are not rich people, but
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  Speaker 1: they have been favored by this new growing government under
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  Speaker 1: something called the Homestead Act of eighteen sixty two. So
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  Speaker 1: they show up en Mass and they say, hey, you know,
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  Speaker 1: the folks back east said that this land is my land, this.
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  Speaker 2: Little bit of a land your land. Right.
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  Speaker 1: We're farming wheat here, and this is where we go
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  Speaker 1: to something historians called the Dakota Boom. From eighteen seventy
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  Speaker 1: eight to eighteen eighty six, giant farms or are running
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  Speaker 1: across the land North Dakota. Wheat became the primary a
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  Speaker 1: mover for the milling industry of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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  Speaker 2: I'm picturing one of those progress montages from movies where
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  Speaker 2: it's just like a fast motion animation of like dip dip, dip,
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  Speaker 2: dip dip, deep dip di just popping up all over
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  Speaker 2: the landscape, you know, farms and wheat fields.
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  Speaker 1: I'm picturing, Yeah, I'm picturing similar to that when you
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: when you make a world wonder in the Civilization game series.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: You get that quick montage of people building the pyramid
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  Speaker 1: or whatever.
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  Speaker 2: Nice.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, but now it's just people farming in North Dakota
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  Speaker 1: and railways, of course being built. The railways are government supported,
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  Speaker 1: private interests with a lot of corruption, but they are
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: not friends. So the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Railway for in for instance, they're Pepsi and Coke. There
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: are two companies that are very similar but hate each other.
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  Speaker 1: So they were fighting with one another to lay track
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  Speaker 1: towards the richest centers. The farmers were united by their
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: dependence on the wheat crop and this led to just
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: a side note here, what we call the populist movement.
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  Speaker 1: It's not until eighteen sixty one that the Dakota Territory
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  Speaker 1: is established, and then it gets divided in eighteen eighty
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  Speaker 1: nine to North and South Dakota. In that same year,
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  Speaker 1: this former territory that is now two states, gets official
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  Speaker 1: recognition and becomes part of the Union. It's November two,
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  Speaker 1: eighteen eighty nine. Congratulations to you guys.
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  Speaker 2: Good job, good, Yes, you did it. You did something.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: That's right, you did do something. Then it was something,
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: all right. So now that we've set the scene. Let's
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: talk a little bit about the panic. You know, we
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: love a moral panic bend that led to the crowd.
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  Speaker 1: Ah. Yes, And to get to this part of the story,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: we're going to lean on our pal Mary Helm from
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Prairie Public Newsroom, a subsidiary of PBS. I don't know
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: about you, guys, but I'm a fan of Public.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: Broadcasting also known as Prairie Mary.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: That ravery Mary Helm.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: It's fun. Yeah, No, huge, huge PBS fans over here.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: And I think didn't we just discuss that there was
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: a court decision that overturned the defunding.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: We haven't talked about it, but yes, the news just
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: came out.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: I would say, that's so. We talked about it on
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: stuff they don't want you to know, strange news.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Last time we were Ah, you got to take the
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: winds where you can get them.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: You know, truly do man, you truly do so. The
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: Dakota Territory Indian Wars ended when Sitting Bull surrendered at
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Fort Buford in eighteen seventy five, and that is when
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: the tribes were essentially, you know, kicked off their land
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: officially and placed in reservations, which is basically the also
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: ran land, the land that you know, the settlers didn't want.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: Also areas where wild game that they relied on, of
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: course for their way of life as hunter gatherers had
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: been hunted to near extinction. Not good.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this did not end well obviously.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: The this is trail of tears, right.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: This is similar to those systemic extermination programs. There's no
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: reason to call them anything else. The US government promised
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: these again innocent people, rations and supplies, but the Bureau
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: of Indian Affairs was Russian level corrupt, so we don't
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: know if these items actually made it to the reservations.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: If they did, they were remnants because so many people
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: were taking their little vigoroush on the path from east
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: to west. By eighteen ninety, as a result of this,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: there was I get a little choked up talking about this.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: There was a.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Human created famine. This did not have to happen, but
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: due to Uncle Sam's actions, there was widespread starvation on reservations,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: where again, as you said, the Native American populations were
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: pushed under threat of torture and death. This where we
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: see folks like the Payuti Wovoca who proclaimed that hey,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: we were here first, we can arise. We can lean
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: on our old traditions. We have been here for thousands
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: of years. We can conduct a great ritual called the
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Ghost Dance, and people traveled from Indian communities in the
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Dakota Territory to learn more. This movement is peaceful, to
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: be clear, It's not like a religious fundamentalist thing. The
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: idea is that the Ghost Dance promises a Messiah and
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: a return of the Buffalo through songs, dances, and visions.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: This did get politically weaponized. We also have to keep
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: in mind that the buffalo was almost driven extinct by
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: the European powers at the.
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  Speaker 2: Time over hunting and without any sense of the continuum,
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: you know, of the ecosystem, and of course the First
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: nation folks were very aware of and we're just the
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: conservation was sort of part of the equation as far
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: as they were concerned. But then you have these forces
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: coming in from outside, not thinking about the big picture
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: at all. Surprise, surprise, and just kind of willy nilly,
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: you know, hunting as they saw fit, without any forward thinking,
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: you know, plans for how that would affect others or
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: even themselves.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and some of the we could call them activists,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Some of the people were a little bit more militant
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: and saw the ghost Dance as as a threat to
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: the increasingly normalize European culture, right, a threat to take
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: back all those lands that were, we'll be honest, stolen
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: from them. And as a result, journalists latch onto this
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: European journalist and they say the ghost Dance is reaching
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Standing Rock. There's a Standing Rock agent named James McLaughlin
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: who assures settlers everything's under control. These newspaper stories are rumors,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: but by November fifteenth, rumors had Mandan, which at this
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: point was a town sixty miles east of Aribron, North Dakota,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: where a story takes place. The rumors in November fifteenth
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: had people in a widespread panic. We're talking women and
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: children fleeing across the river to Bismarck. Volunteer militias springing
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: up to fight for our land, and news spreads to
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: other towns in the areas. People who are in political
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: office or people who are good faith authorities of law
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: are trying to protect friendly tribes from random violence. You know.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: It's it's very troublingly similar in some ways to the
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: great discrimination against people of the Islamic Faith Post nine
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: to eleven. You know, where we saw people getting beat
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: up and assaulted just because they go to a mosque.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: Right or even you know, for praying in public or
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: what have you like, that that very innocuous and sacred
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: activity was associated with violence because of you know, bad
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: faith reporting. Frankly, you know, and and and and folks
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: that were going out of their way to connect that
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: type of thing, like the idea of Allah akbar, you know,
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: with terrorist activities very similar here. This is a religious,
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: peaceful religious practice, this ghost dance, and it seems that
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: it was painted as some sort of warring ritual or
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: something like that, right.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Right, It was propagandized. Yeah, and we can see this
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: in books like the Indian Scare of eighteen ninety by
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: father Lewis Faller, who writes, quote, one of the most
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: unique of the stories coming out of the Scare was
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: that of Hebron and its famous Fort souer Kraut. So
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: as soon as Hebron starts to panic around November seventeenth,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: thanks to telegraph warnings about the ghost dance movement and passage,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: a bunch of young guys in the area jump on
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: their horses they ride across the prairie. In their minds,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: they're like Paul Revere. They're warning settlers, but this time
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: it's the Indians, not the British, who are coming. And
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Fuller says, look, these wagons rattle over rough terrain toward Hebron.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: One guy was in such haste that he went several
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: miles before he discovered his family. Bounced out of the wagon.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Great, great, shut up, Okay, bounce right on out of
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: the wagon. I think I heard mention of Fort Sauerkraut.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Ah. Yes, yeah, let's explain that, all right, let's go
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: to Atlas Obscure. Courtesy of the journalist Ian.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: Lefkowitz Lefkowitz Rights. In late November eighteen ninety, the town
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: of Hebron, North Dakota, was not yet a decade old,
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: and yet it was seized by fear. Rumors had been
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: spreading across the region that a group of hostile Lakota
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: people had fled the Standing Rock Reservation to the south
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: and were attacking towns on their way. When the mostly
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: German homesteaders who lived in Hebron received telegram warnings of
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: an impending attack, they were gripped with terror.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Right yeah, because they were functioning under what we call
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: information a symmetry. They did not again think of indigital
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: or native peoples as people. They thought of them as
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: somehow monstrous or subhuman, despite the fact that clearly the
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Europeans were the aggressors and all these conflicts. So these
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: German homesteaders send women and children to Bismarck and they
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: rush to build a fort to protect themselves. However, these
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: are generally going to be agrarian populations, right, These are
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: not military populations, so they don't have a ton of
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: the supplies that you would ordinarily need when constructing a fort.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: They have to get creative with their fort construction. They
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: have to maguiver it a little bit. So what they
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: do is, since they don't have lumber and they don't
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: have guns, they create essentially a makeshift shelter on the
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: tallest hilltop they can find, and they use saw it
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: for walls, these railroad ties for a roof. They shelter
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: in place, they bunker down. This fort is one hundred
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: feet long, seven feet high, and it is stocked with
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: the other stuff that they have in abundance, which is frankly,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: kegs of sour kraut.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's a similar story to what we hear. Oftentimes,
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: the way kind of culturally significant food stuffs are created
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: is usually out of necessity, fermenting things to keep them
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: from going bad. Stuff like that. And that's exactly what's
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: going on here, because we have these barrels of sauer kraut,
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: which is a way of preserving the copious amounts of
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: cabbage that they had and keep them from spoiling.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and brief aside about sauer kraut for anybody who's
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: not aware, sauer kraut is the German word for sour cabbage.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: It is, as you said, no fermented to finely cut
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: raw white cabbage. It has a couple of different spins
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: you can put on it, but the sour flavor is
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: due to the fermenting bacteria and the lactic acid that
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: it forms. A side note, if you want to cook
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: cabbage for yourself at home, folks, make sure to get
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: some caraway seeds. That's going to help with the smell.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Is that right? Yeah? Oh wow, what a cool kitchen hack.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: I didn't know about that. Man, I've never messed with
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: a caraway seed before. Well, have you messed with the
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: sour krout. I do you know, it's not my favorite
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: thing in the whole white world. I do like it
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: on a dog. It's like it's like a relish. I
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: like it as a condiment. I certainly wouldn't like eat
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: it on its own, but I think of it as
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: a bit of a condiment. Our buddy Frank, friend of
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: the show, when we used to live together back in
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: the day, he would make his own crowd. He was
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: a huge fan of the crowd, and he would just
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: eat that stuff, you know by the Fistfiicazell.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's something in the eyes so actly. So. The
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Manda Pioneer publishes this account on November thirtieth of the
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: same year about a guy named doctor Coe Coe visiting
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: the fort, and he says, look, these folks are showing
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: a vast amount of pluck and energy preparing against the
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: possible danger from an attack Fort Sauerkraut, as we're calling it.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Their first line of defense was a bunch of wires.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: They were strung to trip enemies who might be sneaking
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: around in the dark during a new moon. And inside
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: that there was a five strand barbed wire fence, and
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: then there were rifle pits, which are kind of like
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: the underground version of siege windows on a castle, where
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: it's narrow enough that you can shoot an arrow without
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: maybe getting shot yourself. So these rifle pits connect to
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: underground tunnels that lead to the inside of the fort,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: and the sawed walls are you know, stretching hundreds of
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: feet across. Inside there we have the actual fortification, one
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: hundred feet long, gate feet deep. This is to house
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: the women and children who didn't get away.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and as our buddy Max points out, history it
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: often leaves some things up to the imagination because it's
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: not always one hundred percent accurate. And typically the version
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: of events that we get are you know, reported by
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: the victors or you know, folks in power, often with
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: political motivations.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Right, aren't all the women and children sent to Bismarck?
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Why why do we have this fortification to protect them?
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: For sure? And speaking of fifth figures of authority telling
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: the tale, we've got this this religious figure, father Foller,
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: who was writing. One day, the Scouts were aroused by
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: an ominous cloud of dust, which sent the people scurrying
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: to the fort. Alarm grew when they could see the
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: cloud razors were Indians bedecked in feathers. Fortunately, Swensen, which
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: is a fantastic name, recognized them as friendly Indians from
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: the Fort Berthold Reservation, probably gross venturos under sitting Owl.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: The visiting Indians put the beleaguered settlers at ease by
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: volunteering to help them fight the Sioux and mingled freely
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: with the fort builders.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Right, which is a great observation from old father Foller.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: There because a lot of people got caught up in
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: this anti native propaganda and they forgot that these are
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: very complex, very long lived communities who are not monolithic.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: They don't all like each other. So maybe our pals
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: who are under sitting Owl already we're looking for a
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: reason to hate the Sioux, you know what I mean?
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: An enemy of my enemy is my friend, at least temporarily.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: And so for weeks on end, these groups were preparing
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: for this supposedly impending doom, right, this inescapable danger. At
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: night in the evening, the townspeople hunkered down inside the
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: local church, But the attacks that they were convinced were
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: on the way never actually happened. Instead, they spent months
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: and months in fear and Eventually they realized that they
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: had been hoaxed.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: So the ghost dance movement that created this satanic panic
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: was officially and tragically annihilated at the Wounded Knee massacre. Yeah.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And as our pel Max points out, this is
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: dark but also souerkrap which I would I would argue
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: in responses a bit of a struggle food itself.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: No, it's true, it's a little darker than maybe one
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: might expect an episode about a delightful condiment.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: That that statement right there with more of me just
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: standing out loud. How I'm like, oh, for souerkraut, this
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: sounds interesting.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Are you a sower crowd guy?
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Uh? Precondition?
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Yes, uh pre cond You can't have toer craft because
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: of the condition.
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it's the whole aging and brining it.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: Now that that's.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: One day, we're going to do an episode on like
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: the Three Things You Can Eat, Max.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: Uh, my brother wants to do a chronic hives podcast.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: It's very niche.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: That is alex fullyam circumposer for for this. For this show,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: we do want to take it to the present because
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: it is informed by the past. If you go to
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: the town that we're mentioning here, you'll see it is
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: still alive and well, if you go to hebron nd
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: dot org and get in pardon my pronunciation, you'll see
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: it is calling itself the Brick City. A perfect typical
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: old town US, A rich in amenities, a location convenient
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: to larger cities like Bismarck and Dickinson. So they're fine.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: It's rural. It's about two miles from Interstate ninety four.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: It's on the Old Red Ten Old ten Scenic Byway.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: And love it, you know it, well, know it?
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, where would we be without it? The original
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: fort is obviously not there anymore, but you can visit
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: a recreation of the fort to day. And we love
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: seeing recreations of things. I love. They're very big throughout
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: the Southeast. I love going to the recreation, the recreated,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: like old famous Guys Home and old Fort and so on.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Did you ever go to one of those re enactment villages,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: you know, I never have been, but I did go to.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: I want to say it was Woodrow Wilson's house in
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: New York City, his apartment, and it was you know,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: quite realistically recreated like it's the actual building. But I
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: think it was actually a lot of it was damaged
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: in a fire. So some really eagle eyed historians used
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: all the historical context clues they could to make it
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: as accurate as possible, and you can totally take a
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: walk through it and it really is like, you know,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: going traveling back in time. Nice. I also want to
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: give a special shout out to our pal Mark Kendall,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: who years and years ago before he became as famous
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: as he is now, Mark had a gig as a
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: re enactor at an old school Georgia plantation and Mark
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: is a black man is He's hung out with us
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: on several different shows and so on, and to hear
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: his story of his experience as a reenactor there, it's
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: worth a listen. So check out Eddie show that you
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: see his name attached to. We also know if you
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: find yourself in North Dakota, this recreation of the fort
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: is family friendly, self guided towards free admission. You can
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: just rock up and check out a little bit of
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: history for yourself. You do have to byos bring your
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: own sour kraut for sure.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah exactly.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: With that, big, big thanks to you fellow ridiculous historians.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Most importantly and most eternally for tuning in. Big thanks
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: to our super producer and research associate for this episode,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: mister Max Williams. Big thanks to crowd rock fan Alex.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: Williams one hundred percent.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: Do you think Jonathan Strickland aka the Quizter eats sauer Kraut?
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: No? Oh, surely not for surely so I'm not sure
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: which one is more villains?
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: How does he fit into how does sour kraut fit into?
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Our mean profile of it?
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: TBD TV that I know a lot of people like
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: sour kraut, but it also you know, it is often
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: depicted as sort of like a funky food that might
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: yield some bad breath, or like you know, Dickensian character
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: who eats raw onions or something like that. That's how
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: I'm using it in this in this context.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: Mm hmm, Well, we could definitely say that Jonathan Strickland
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: ak the Quist is nothing more than awesome dude, but
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: very much a sour crout.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: Oh and also, real quick, y'all, when I mentioned the
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: presidential historic home that I visited in New York City,
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: wasn't Woodrow Wilson got myself confused there? It was Theodore
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: Roosevelt's birthplace National Historic Site, and then it was recreated,
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: you know, again to be completely period accurate as much
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: as they possibly could. And it is a it is
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: a really cool hang and it is under gosh, who
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: knows if that's the case anymore, how that works. But
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: when I went, it was under the National Parks Service,
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: so you literally had a park ranger in a New
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: York City kind of Brownstone giving you a tour, which
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: I thought was kind of meat.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan of MPs. Also, if you happen
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: to find yourself in Georgia looking for something to do,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: take a day trip with us to Warm Springs, Georgia.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: That's a pretty fascinating bit of presidential history as well.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Big thanks to aj Bahamas, Jacob's Ak the Puzzler, Big
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: thanks to doctor Rachel Big Spinach Lance. Of course, the
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: Brew Dude's a ridiculous crime. If you dig us, you'll
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: love them.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: Who else? Christopher hasiotis cush, Yes, Eve, Jeff Coates here
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: in spirit.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: And thanks also to everybody who's snarfing some Sauer kraut
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: right now, And thanks to.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: You all you crowd snarfers out there. Thanks to you
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: as well. Ben, We'll see you next time, folks. For
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.