I love stories about the Depression-era gangsters, bootleggers, and crime bosses of Chicago and New York City, but they are rarely something I get to research at the State Historical Society of North Dakota.

Imagine my surprise when I was shown this photo below of James Vincenzo Capone, eldest brother of infamous gangsters Al, Frank, and Ralph Capone, in our Frank Fiske photograph collection. Taken at Fort Yates, North Dakota, it shows James Capone, who by then was known as Richard James “Two Gun” Hart, surrounded by confiscated liquor stills. Immediately I had questions: How did a Capone brother end up in North Dakota as a Prohibition agent? And how did this photo come to be taken by the early 20th-century photographer Frank Fiske? I began searching through our newspaper holdings as well as the vital records available on Ancestry.com to learn more.

Richard James “Two Gun” Hart (born James Vincenzo Capone) with his collection of confiscated stills, 1926. SHSND SA 1952-00088

I soon found out that this Capone had immigrated in 1893 with his parents to the United States where the rest of his eight siblings were born. At age 16 James left New York to make his life out West, choosing to distance himself from his Italian heritage by eventually changing his name to Richard James Hart. He married Kathleen Winch in 1919 and worked as a Prohibition agent in the western Plains states.

Meanwhile, Frank Fiske was born in 1883 at Fort Bennett, Dakota Territory, and grew up around Fort Yates. He learned photography from S.T. Fansler at Fort Yates and though still a teenager took over the studio after Fansler left town in 1900. Fiske would continue to work out of Fort Yates, save for a few brief periods, until his death in 1952. While Fiske was best known for his portraits of Native Americans, the true relevance of his photographs comes from his documentation of everyday life at Fort Yates and the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.

Photographer Frank Fiske in 1910. SHSND SA 1952-00111

As former Photo Archivist Sharon Silengo has noted of his legacy: “Fiske produced pictures of the life that the Sioux of the Standing Rock Reservation really lived—they were involved in celebrations when allowed by the government agent, they competed in rodeos with other cowboys, they performed in bands on instruments that they were taught to play in their boarding schools, and they married in the white way including wearing the garb of a fancy wedding dress and dress suit, not their traditional dress that would have been worn in the past. These are photographs of the reality of life for Indians.”

From left, John Brought Plenty, Jersey Grey Bear, Francis Mossman, Eugene D. Mossman, and Richard Hart with confiscated stills and liquor, 1926. SHSND SA 1952-01623

While we don’t know much about their relationship, Fiske and Hart’s paths crossed when Hart was a special agent for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, working alongside Fort Yates Superintendent Eugene D. Mossman to confiscate illegal stills and liquor in the Standing Rock Indian Reservation and surrounding areas. In January 1926, the Sioux County Pioneer reported that a series of raids on the reservation conducted by Mossman netted “many victims besides a lot of evidence and other paraphernalia.” Hart and officer Jersey Grey Bear picked up farmer Frank Slawa and “confiscated a five gallon jug of moonshine.” One of these raids was reported to have resulted in the removal of 25 gallons of alcohol from the reservation. Due to his skills, Hart was described by the paper as “a most crafty enforcement officer.” Fiske’s photographs make it clear just how much was confiscated in such a short period of time.

The photographs taken of the raid spoils and officers also shed light on one facet of the reservation life that Fiske would spend his life documenting. The photos preserved these events and speak to the impact Prohibition had on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. Interestingly, according to records in Fiske’s business ledger, Hart purchased 12 postcards of these photographs of him for a total of $5.00.

Hart poses with a Colt .45-caliber revolver. SHSND SA 1952-06187

As for Hart’s efforts to keep his identity under wraps, a year before his death in 1952 his secret as a Capone was revealed to the nation when he was subpoenaed to appear before a jury in his brother Ralph’s tax evasion case. Fiske also passed away in 1952, and one can’t help but wonder what he might have thought about the revelation or if he already knew?

We are always fortunate when a new object enters the museum collection with a fantastic story attached. The recent donation of the S.D. Nelson Collection came with a whole series of stories attached—in fact, the contents of the collection revolve around the art of storytelling.

S.D. Nelson is a prolific, award-winning writer and illustrator. Since 1999 he has produced a series of 12 children’s books and collaborated on an additional seven books focused on the cultural heritage of Native American communities.

A registered member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and a descendant of the Hunkpapa Lakota, Nelson spent childhood summers visiting his grandmother at Fort Yates, where he learned about his family’s cultural heritage. His mother, Christine Rose Gipp (Elk Tooth Woman), was a gifted storyteller who inspired him from a young age with tales and traditional lore of his tribe.

In a recent conversation I had with Nelson, he reflected on how the summer visits also exposed him to the shared community trauma that stemmed from reservation life and the disruptions inflicted by the American Indian boarding schools. He noted as an adult looking back on those painful childhood experiences that much of the trauma and many of the issues remain and have intensified, often with tragic results.

Nelson’s father, Thurston D. Nelson, was of Scandinavian descent and a career military officer. The family moved constantly following new postings, and S.D. and his three siblings were exposed to a broader world beyond the Standing Rock Reservation. Nelson would eventually graduate from high school in Fargo. His interest in art led him to complete the art education program at the University of Minnesota Moorhead. His professional career evolved as an art educator in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Nelson views his children’s books as an extension of his advocacy for children’s education. He is a cofounder of Read@Home, an organization promoting literary opportunities for preschoolers in Native American communities. He is a popular lecturer and was profiled on an episode produced by Prairie Public in 2010.

Last summer, Nelson visited the North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum in Bismarck to deliver a selection of artwork, documentation, and objects relating to his publications. In all we received 135 objects, including original paintings, sketches, colored pencil drawings, printer’s proofs, and handcrafted traditional objects made by the artist.

The collection arrived as we were developing the graphic design and interpretation for the Sitting Bull exhibition currently on view at the Missouri-Yellowstone Confluence Interpretive Center. As luck would have it, one of Nelson’s children’s books—which is well represented in the donation—is “Sitting Bull: Lakota Warrior and Defender of his People.” We eagerly incorporated several of his illustrations into the interpretive layouts and included one of his original acrylic paintings in the section exploring Sitting Bull’s contemporary legacy.

Two illustrations from S.D. Nelson’s 2015 book “Sitting Bull: Lakota Warrior and Defender of his People.” SHSND PAR-2020082.55

Sitting Bull killed his first bison at age 10. “Buffalo Brother” shows Sitting Bull thanking the bison for giving up his life. SHSND PAR-2020082.56 

The new donation also includes materials relating to Nelson’s first publication “Gift Horse: A Lakota Story” and his 2012 book “Buffalo Bird Girl: A Hidatsa Story.” “Buffalo Bird Girl” is a retelling of the landmark narrative provided by Buffalo Bird Woman (Waheenee, 1839-1932) to ethnographer Gilbert L. Wilson, and whose subsequent publication in 1921 provides much of the primary research documenting traditional Hidatsa lifestyles and agricultural practices. Nelson’s book focuses on Buffalo Bird Woman’s childhood, thus the age shift in the title.

S.D. Nelson shows Assistant Registrar Elise Dukart the beadwork on a pipe bowl bag he made.

We are currently developing a new exhibition drawn from materials in the S.D. Nelson Collection to be installed in the North Dakota Artists Gallery in late March 2022. The installation will include vignettes from the production of “Gift Horse: A Lakota Story,” “Sitting Bull: Lakota Warrior and Defender of his People,” and “Buffalo Bird Girl: A Hidatsa Story.” We will also show a selection of traditional objects fashioned and embellished by Nelson.

Nelson’s artistic style incorporates multiple aesthetics, which run the gamut from realism to highly stylized representation. His proud Native American figures are often brilliantly colored, blending the tradition of full body paint and the symbolism of favored Lakota colors. His characters and narratives exist in multi-layered landscapes merging the natural world, the spiritual, and the fantastical as one.

An illustration from “Sitting Bull: Lakota Warrior and Defender of His People” shows Lakota and Cheyenne warriors celebrating after the June 17, 1876, Battle of the Rosebud in the Montana Territory. SHSND PAR-2020.082.60

Nelson has illustrated book jackets, greeting cards, and CD covers, and his paintings are held in both private and public collections. His books have received the American Indian Library Association Honor Book Award in 2016; the Spur Award from Western Writers of America in 2004 and 2006; the Notable Children’s Book Award from the American Library Association in 2001 and 2011; and he was included on the 2011 Texas Bluebonnet Award Master List from the Texas Library Association. He has lectured at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., and was the keynote speaker for Read North Dakota in 2010 (North Dakota Humanities Council).

We look forward to introducing you to the evocative world of S.D. Nelson when we premier All Is Grass and Clouds, Forever: The Art of S.D. Nelson this spring.

Here at the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center and Fort Mandan State Historic Site, we host a lot of schools annually. Aside from guided tours of the Interpretive Center and the fort, we create and present educational programs to allow students hands-on learning about some of our site’s topics. Back in 2019, I became a certified interpretive guide through the National Association for Interpretation. To gain my certification I had to create and present a program for our site. I am going to walk you through how I turned my initial idea into a program on mobile mapping.

Step 1: Where do I begin?

The library at the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center was a great place to find inspiration for my program.

There are a lot of topics we cover at the Interpretive Center such as the fur trade, agriculture, early Western artists, tribes of the Missouri River, and of course the Lewis and Clark Expedition. I did my best to sift through these to find a topic that struck a chord with me. One of the resources we have in our library is a book titled Atlas of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which contains copies of the maps of the expedition. I found it wildly interesting that the maps were as detailed as they were, even though the cartographers didn’t always have the necessary time to survey or measure things.

This is when I learned about the art of dead reckoning. When the members of the expedition set off, they only had access to maps of the Missouri River beginning in St. Louis, but these maps all essentially end just west of the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers. The captains were tasked with improving on their current maps while also charting new ones all the way to the Pacific. That’s where dead reckoning comes in. A navigational tool that allows you to estimate your location from visual markers passed by during water travel, dead reckoning allows you to adjust your measurements based on your speed or time traveled. William Clark used this practice to create his maps and was incredibly accurate at it; his margin of error was only 60 miles for the entire expedition.

Step 2: I found a topic … now what?

Replica of William Clark’s desk at Fort Mandan State Historic Site. Clark was the cartographer for the expedition and used dead reckoning to complete many of his maps.

I did some research and gave countless tours to Interpretive Center visitors discussing the ability of the expedition’s men to look at a location, make a sketch, and bury items such as lead, blacksmithing tools, food rations, or other items vital to their survival in caches at those locations. Dead reckoning map making seemed like a no-brainer once I more fully understood the topic. I thought to myself, “How fun would it be to have kids create maps for one another and make them find things?” Our average school age visitor is in the fourth grade, so this could be a great way to capture their attention while creating a scenario that allows them to put something they learn about on their field trip into practice.

Step 3: Time to pound out the deets.

Our programming cabinets contain a treasure trove of interesting props.

Before I got too ahead of myself, I wanted to make sure this program was possible. Remember, I was only creating this to gain my certification. I didn’t have weeks to research how this would work; I had to have it ready to present before the course was over—a total of four days! So I went to the storage room in the fort’s visitor center, opened the doors to the “programming” cabinets, and sifted through our belongings. I knew my program needed to be done with minimal materials and also had some time restrictions. I wanted to create a game of survival based on the accuracy of the participants’ classmates. I didn’t have insight into the interpretive budget, but I wanted to make it doable for future use. I found some copies of the maps from the expedition in the props cabinet to use as a reference as well as clipboards to hold blank pieces of paper for the participants to create their own content.

Step 4: Now the foundation is laid, it’s time to start building.

Mock maps produced for my interpretive program on mobile mapping.

Since the program dealt with a component of navigation, I decided the fort’s front lawn would be the best location for it. While it wasn’t possible to have the prospective participants get in a boat to simulate dead reckoning on water, I could have them moving away or toward a marked location to create their dead reckoning map.

I then had to figure out how participants would understand the importance of accuracy when it came to caching items for the return trip. I realized the only way to facilitate the search would be to split the participants into two groups: map makers and item finders. I would have the map makers work with time restrictions, while the item finders lingered at a distance. Once the map makers ran out of time, the item finders would then be given the maps and told to search for the hidden items, which were key to their survival. If they were not successful in finding the items in the allotted time, the item finders would unfortunately perish in the game.

Step 5: Can I actually pull this off?

Our interpreters love hosting students and sharing their knowledge of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Now I had to have the other aspiring interpreters in my class participate in my program to gain my certification. I had one group go out into the fort’s visitor center while the second group hid their items in the classroom. I then gave them one minute to survey the room and four minutes to draw a map without looking up. The first group of interpreters came back into the room and were handed the maps from the second group. They were given one minute to find the hidden items based on their opposing group’s maps; the goal was to find the hidden items needed to survive. None of them were able to find them.

While I created this program for a certification, we use aspects of it to this day at the Interpretive Center and at Fort Mandan. Unfortunately due to the pandemic, we weren’t able to run the program during the 2020 and 2021 summer seasons, but I have been developing it into an online program to deliver to schools during virtual field trips. Since we are currently in our off-season, we are hard at work on content for the upcoming 2022 summer season. In addition to my mobile mapping program, we are also adapting existing programs on the fur trade, the expedition, and Native American sports and games into virtual presentations, as well as creating new programs that can be delivered both virtually and in-person on topics such as plant and animal identification.

We look forward to welcoming your school group soon!

Welcome to 2022! It’s a time for new beginnings, new resolutions, and … new exhibits! That’s right, the collections and exhibit crew at the State Historical Society of North Dakota recently installed a new exhibit at the ND Heritage Center & State Museum in Bismarck.

The exhibit title is Recent Donations. Five curators chose a selection of items that were donated to the museum collections within the last two years, and they are now on exhibit through November 2022. In this spirit, I’d like to share with you a few more items that we acquired at the tail end of 2021.

One of the last donations received by the museum collection in 2021 was an assortment of Tupperware. Tupperware is a great example of a modern item that is a huge part of North Dakota culture but doesn’t always make it into museums. The donor sold Tupperware starting in the early 1990s, but her collection dates back even earlier. (I don’t know about you, but I can all but see the potluck noodle salad in the green bowls in the image below.)

Nothing says North Dakota potluck like a fetching assortment of Tupperware. SHSND PAR-2021124

Meanwhile, this Melissa & Doug brand toy hammer has served a dual historical purpose that prompted its acceptance into the collection. It’s one of the most contemporary toys that we have acquired. But in an ironic twist, it also served as a gavel during parliamentary proceedings by state Rep. Corey Mock at an online legislative meeting in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mock used this hammer to open a Legislative Information Technology Committee meeting, held remotely on June 4, 2020.

This children’s toy pulled double duty at North Dakota Legislative Assembly committee meetings in 2020 and 2021. SHSND 2021.65

Committee chairmen or chairwomen are usually provided a gavel when using the committee meeting rooms at the state Capitol in Bismarck, but since Mock was attending this particular hybrid meeting from home, he drafted this toy hammer belonging to his then-3-year-old son into service. When he offered this item to the museum collection, Mock reflected, “With a few raps on my standing desk, this Melissa & Doug play hammer was transformed into a parliamentary magic wand.” The hammer was subsequently used as a meeting gavel for several legislative meetings over the course of 2020 and 2021 before being donated to the State Historical Society.

Another contemporary artifact donated in late 2021 was this dress. The donor made it for her 8-year-old daughter in 2016-2017. Blue fabric was added to the skirt as the girl grew taller, allowing it to remain a favorite dress for a few years. This frock is a great example of a recent item whose story can be told not only by the person donating it but also by the physical changes made to the object itself.

The skirt of this handmade dress was lengthened with blue fabric to accommodate a growing girl. SHSND 2021.60

We appreciate our North Dakota citizens who offer us interesting family or personal items to add to the state’s museum collection. Items that are accepted by our staff into the collection help tell the state’s ongoing story for future generations.

Currently the State Museum is looking for additional contemporary items to add to the museum collection. Check out our list of desired items and fill out a questionnaire to have your donation considered by the Museum Collections Committee.

We are so excited to see what is in store for the collection in 2022!

Everyone can benefit from being conscious of ways to attract and engage audiences. It doesn’t matter who you are. In every aspect of your life, whether it be family, social, spiritual, work, play, or recreation, it is valuable to hold your audience in high regard. By recognizing your audience or audiences while striving to attract and engage them you will increase the impact of the services you provide. One approach to enticing a new audience is to reach them when they least expect it. Public art can have such an effect.

Two recently unveiled wall murals in the Heritage Art Tunnel that passes under State Street in Bismarck are good examples of public art in action. The tunnel connects Myron Atkinson Park located on the east side of State Street with the North Dakota State Capitol Complex, including the ND Heritage Center & State Museum.

This unassuming tunnel at the edge of the state Capitol complex has been transformed into an outdoor art gallery. Photo by Melissa Gordon

Artist’s rendition of the Heritage Art Tunnel murals. Photo by Melissa Gordon

The brainchild of the Bismarck-Mandan Chamber of Commerce’s leadership program, the Heritage Art Tunnel took several years to complete. Because the tunnel not only connects Bismarck municipal property with the state Capitol grounds and goes under a city street also designated as a U.S. highway, multiple agencies needed to grant permissions before the public art project could move forward. Design concept development, funding, the involvement of a capable artist, and community support from organizations like Dakota West Arts Council, the North Dakota Council on the Arts, and the State Historical Society were all part of nurturing this project, finished in October 2021, to fruition.

Initially, a “timeline” was the only guidance given to Melissa Gordon, a Bismarck public artist, who both embraced the project and elevated it to the next level. Melissa merged her concept of “connections” with a graphic representation of “circuits” in a circuit board and developed a storyboard that had the potential to tell the history of North Dakota. As this merger took shape it became apparent the North Dakota Studies curriculum developed for fourth grade public school students could offer guidance on content, color palette, and other connections that could turn these murals into a visual learning venue. As the concepts coalesced and became more refined, exhibits in the State Museum helped inform Melissa’s final designs, as you can see in the images below.

Artifacts from the State Museum such as this bison, left, served as inspiration for the art tunnel’s murals. SHSND 4179.2

I encourage you to experience the art for yourself. The Heritage Art Tunnel’s south side mural is organized around the concepts of geography and agriculture; while the north side illustrates energy. Spend a little time in the tunnel. Take guidance from the connections you see to make connections to your own heritage and history using ND Studies and the exhibits in the State Museum.

A connection I made recently was to a blog post from C3 Teachers, a collaborative effort of teachers helping students learn the academic content needed to become ready for the three Cs—college, career, and civic life. In that blog is a street art-related Inquiry Design Model (IDM), which includes concise “questions, tasks, and sources that define a curricular inquiry.” This IDM asks the question: “Does public art make communities better?”

An approach using IDMs is also being implemented in ND Studies. This will allow teachers to experiment with their teaching practices while simultaneously supporting students as they question, analyze, and collaborate in authentic social studies experiences. This distinctive approach to creating instructional materials gives teachers flexibility to develop relevant lessons that provide creative questions, tasks, and sources for North Dakota students as they prepare for their futures. All this is to say that public art projects like the Heritage Art Tunnel can spark unique and transformative learning experiences. Each of us should look at our potential audiences and the connections we make both with them and everything around us, striving in creative ways to take informed action toward a better future for all.

As I settled into my role as the site supervisor for the Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile State Historic Site in fall 2017, my site manager provided an orientation and demonstrated the necessities of maintaining our “Little Missile House on the Prairie,” the former Oscar-Zero Missile Alert Facility.

“Oh, and try to get a helicopter,” she added almost offhandedly.

I nodded, wondering how that would even be possible. A month prior to starting the job I’d been a groundskeeper in Nebraska.

The helicopter mission was an important part of a missile field’s operations during the Cold War. While a lot—and I mean a lot—of driving was performed to and from the 15 Launch Control Facility sites in the Grand Forks missile field (a geographical area equivalent in size to New Jersey), a helicopter offered critical benefits. It could fly over snowed-in roads. It could perform search and rescue operations. And it could also bring a contingent of armed security forces quickly to any missile site. Indeed, helicopters remain a key component for security in the active Minuteman missile fields around Minot.

Two views of the Oscar-Zero helipad, with the Missile Alert Facility in the distance, left. Helicopters were used sparingly in the missile field as road transport was much cheaper.

During my search for a chopper, I quickly narrowed it down to the Huey helicopter type made famous during the Vietnam War. The Huey type also served the Grand Forks missile field in two variants, the smaller Bell UH-1F Iroquois from the 1960s and the bigger Bell HH-1H Iroquois that arrived in the early 1980s.

Although these were the same helicopter in name, they looked different, and the -H model was much more prevalent. It didn’t seem to me like they were that rare. After all, just up the road in a park in McVille, North Dakota, there’s a former Army National Guard Huey. Thanks to our first Site Supervisor Mark Sundlov, we had been cleared to take artifact loans from the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. Certain standards had to be met to ensure we could properly display and maintain a piece of Air Force history. (For instance, painting an aircraft in polka dots would be frowned upon.) After receiving this certification, we had to wait.

Once I took over as site supervisor in 2017, I reconnected with the Air Force museum and submitted a little wish list for our collection—a helicopter, a missile, and/or a missile warhead—you know, nothing too outlandish. None were available, so once more we waited.

We considered other options like contacting the U.S. Army, which had operated many UH-1 helicopters over the years and probably had some on a storage lot somewhere waiting either for a museum or the scrapyard. Another option was to bide our time until Minot’s Bell UH-1N Twin Huey force retired in the mid-2020s. Then again, purists would note that the UH-1N did not serve in the Grand Forks field. Like the UH-1F, it looks a little different from the -H model. But hey, maybe the Air Force would give us a flying one!

Out of the blue (no pun intended), I received a phone call in September 2021 from the museum offering us not only an HH-1H Huey helicopter, but one that was used in the Grand Forks field. Luckily, no one else was on site that day to see me running up and down the hallway cheering—except maybe the security officers monitoring the cameras back at the ND Heritage Center & State Museum in Bismarck, but they’re cool.

An HH-1H helicopter participates in a security exercise at Grand Forks in the early 1990s. U.S. National Archives

This brings us to the present moment. We recently finished work with the State Historical Society’s Museum Collections Committee in Bismarck to consider and okay this long-term loan from the U.S. Air Force. Then there was the search for funding, which is ongoing, along with a scramble for quotes from shipping companies capable of moving the helicopter from its desert home in Arizona to North Dakota. We also had to get quotes to have it repainted—over 20 years in the desert tends to fade paint. After this came another search for funding, and so on and so forth.

Setting up an aircraft for static display is a delicate matter. Gone are the days that a city park could get a fighter jet that kids could play on or climb in. Understandably, the U.S. Air Force wants its artifacts to reflect positively on it and be well cared for, an expectation which requires maintenance schedules and security protocols. Rotor blades must be secured—after all, it’s windy in North Dakota—and inspections will be required to remediate any rust issues or damage. While the public will be able to view the chopper at a distance, as is often the case with such exhibits, they will not be able to enter the aircraft.

Because of this type of helicopter’s ties to the conflict in Vietnam, it’s hard not to reflect on my father who served there between 1969 and 1970. January 2022 marks 15 years since he passed away from cancer, potentially caused by the chemical Agent Orange. All these years later, the irony is not lost on me that I’m seeking perhaps the most iconic symbol of that war as a museum display. The venerable Huey has served in a variety of military roles, but it has also saved countless lives over its career. From the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam to stranded skiers in Wyoming, the rumble of a Huey has meant a lot of different things to a lot of people.

Back in North Dakota, the Huey will enhance the interpretive mission of our state historic site in multiple ways. It will serve as a tangible example of history from the missile field, an aircraft that was flown during the waning days of the Cold War when the nation’s Minuteman missiles were considered paramount to the goals of nuclear deterrence and preventing war.

When you grew up playing with Micro Machines, raced outside whenever you heard the familiar “whoomp-whoomp” of a Huey helicopter’s rotor blades from the nearby airport and watched as many Vietnam documentaries as I did, you can’t help but feel a little giddy that your site may soon be getting its own helicopter. Well, technically, this will be a long-term U.S. Air Force loan to the state of North Dakota. But it will still be cool to peer out from the Security Control Center at Oscar-Zero and gaze on a real-life Huey, a unique piece of history sure to inspire further interest in the story of the Cold War in North Dakota. While we still need to secure funding for the move and painting, I’m optimistic that 2022 will at last bring the fulfillment of my Christmas wish.