Slow winter entertainment

Winter is a tough season for people and businesses. This had to be particularly true back in the 1880s.

After all, before the internet, television or even radio, people actually had to talk to each other.

The Jan. 18, 1884, edition of the Jamestown Alert had a couple of announcements relating to the Jamestown winter business climate.

First, the Alert announced it was downsizing for the winter to a five-column daily. This reduced the amount of news it had to produce for the paper during the slow winter months.

The Alert also spent considerable ink bragging about its new steam engine used to operate the printing press. The paper claimed to be the only one in the Dakota Territory other than the Fargo Republican completely operated by steam power. It even invited the public to stop by and view the steam-powered printing press in operation.

Winter entertainment may have been lacking if watching a printing press was a spectator sport.

The offices of the city of Jamestown were also getting telephone service that winter. The Jamestown Alert noted that the city clerk could now be reached by phone if anyone had questions about city government.

“He can stand such inquires up to about 100 per day,” the writer of The Jamestown Alert said in the article. “But above that number you should stop your ears before your answer comes back. As likely as not he will tell you to go to Helena, and it may not be convenient for you to go.”

Evidently, the city clerk was a travel agent as well as a public administrator during the winter.

Author Keith Norman can be reached at

www.KeithNormanBooks.com