The Democrat: THE FIRST NEWSPAPER IN DAKOTA

BY WAYNE FANEBUST

In1856, the Western Town Company from Dubuque, Iowa, sent representatives to the falls of the Big Sioux River for the purpose of laying out a town site in accordance with federal law. Their 320 acre tract, that included the falls, was named Sioux Falls. The following year The Dakota Land Company from St. Paul, Minnesota, sent a contingent of speculators to the falls for the purpose of claiming a town site. Upon learning that the falls had already been claimed, they simply laid out a town site next to their rivals calling it Sioux Falls City.

Both companies were determined to build a city at the coveted falls of the Big Sioux River, but the men from St. Paul had ambitions that far exceeded those of their competitors from Iowa. The plans of Dakota Land Company went far beyond merely building a city; they wanted to lay claim to the future political and economic destiny of the vast tract of unorganized land that they called Dakota Territory. So in order to get Congress to act and formally create Dakota Territory, the St. Paul speculators went to work taking almost desperate measures, some of which were anything but ethical.

The bold speculators held phony elections with vote counts that far exceeded the actual population of the tiny wilderness settlements that included Medary, Flandreau and Eminija. They sent representatives to Congress, claiming these men had been duly elected, when in fact, there was no legal authority for holding elections. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and the Dakota Land Company’s house of card collapsed.

There was one accomplishment that had some legitimacy. The St. Paul men brought in a printing press and started a newspaper called The Dakota Democrat. The man chosen to operate the newspaper was Samuel J. Albright, who came to St. Paul in 1853 by way of Ohio. In the winter of 1858-59, he set up shop in a “fine stone building on the corner of Water Street and Washington Avenue.” In actuality it was a rough stone building by the side of the Big Sioux River near a small island called Phillips Island. In 1858 Dakota was really a no man’s land, a territory in name only, after Minnesota was admitted as a state to the Union. With the creation of the state of Minnesota, a huge chunk of land to the west was left unorganized and ungoverned; it would eventually make up the eastern portions of North and South Dakota.

The great “Minnesota Outback” must have seemed like a golden gift to the hand full of speculators, and their newspaper was just the thing needed to promote their grandiose ideas of political and economic conquest. It was a tall order for Albright and his staff of one but he went to work with a fierce determination. He was a veteran of the Mexican war, and had newspaper experience in New Orleans and New York before coming to St. Paul. It was, however, in Sioux Falls City that Albright’s editorial talent came to fruition.

The printing apparatus of the Democrat had a history that was as interesting as Albright, for although the masthead was new, the press equipment had a storied past that began in 1836, when it was used to print the Dubuque Visitor, the first newspaper in that eastern Iowa city. Next, it went to Lancaster, Wisconsin, where in March of 1843, it published the Grant County Herald, the first newspaper in western Wisconsin. Moving further west, the press turned up in St. Paul in 1849, where J. M. Goodhue published the Pioneer Press, the first newspaper in Minnesota. After getting the Pioneer Press going, the equipment that laid claim to many frontier firsts, was loaded into a wagon and pulled by oxen to its new home in Sioux Falls City beside the Big Sioux River where for a short time, it made more history.

Assisted by printer I. W. Stuart, Albright published his first edition of the Dakota Democrat on July 2, 1859. As one might assume, the newspaper was Democratic in politics. As time was ticking off toward the beginning of the American Civil War, the ante-bellum Democratic Party was on the defensive in many parts of the country. Albright, however, unfurled his journalistic offering from a small spec of a town in the remote part of the frontier where he was safe criticize the Union or President Abraham Lincoln and his new Republican Party.

At any rate, the first edition of the Democrat was anything but political in nature. Albright made it clear that his paper was devoted to the organization of Dakota Territory and to the land speculation of his colleagues in the Dakota Land Company. It contained a smattering of national news, some fiction along with items of local importance, including classifieds placed by Sioux Falls City businesses. For example, Albright and his business party James M. Allen advertised their real estate business, promising to “attend to all business appertaining to a general land agency.”

Dr. J. L. Phillips, “physician and surgeon,” promised to “make professional visits” in the “town or country.” Albert Kilgore was looking for blacksmith work at his shop on Hill Street, and John Rouse held himself out as a boot maker, “at prices that were in accord with any other boot maker in the East or West.” It all seemed so matter of fact. Anyone reading the Dakota Democrat would never suspect that it was issued from a crude and isolated outpost in the Northwest, where merchants spent most of their time wishing for customers while longing for a future that equaled or exceeded the letter and spirit of their advertisements.

Oddly enough, the most dramatic aspect of the short history of Samuel J. Albright’s journalistic experiment was a nasty feud and fight with a Sioux City editor, F. M. Ziebach, a man with an appetite for journalistic punches that was equal to that of his opponent. Frontier presses were financially supported by advertisers, subscribers and by those who benefited from the success of the newspaper. Many frontier papers were formed to promote a political or business faction, and as such, were biased in the extreme with pretense toward being objective. That said, clashes were inevitable and when rival editors locked horns it was advisable to leave them to their combat, and sit back and watch the spectacle.

The struggle started innocently enough when the Register reported the death of Henry Masters, a poet and politician, and the first settler to die in Sioux Falls. It was reported that he “was seized with a chill” and died suddenly. If Ziebach would have simply moved on to other news, the matter might have ended, but he went on to write that “considerable sickness prevails at the Falls” and “people are discouraged and dissatisfied” with the small settlement.

Albright saw the danger in the Register article and fired back. In a time when people believed that climate caused disease, he proclaimed: “the high elevation, the short duration of the extreme heat of summer, the pure, dry atmosphere of winter, renders Dakota one of the healthiest of climates….” But he found this explanation was insufficient and went on state that “almost every other house [in Sioux City] is said to be tenantless,” and that all three hotels were without guests.

The heated exchange continued until

Ziebach had had enough of the verbal fisticuffs and declared that “we have now done with the goggled dandy and defamer of Sioux City, and shall make no further mention of him in our columns.” Not long after the feud ended, Ziebach left Sioux City for Yankton and started the first newspaper in that town.

Albright shut down the presses after only a few issues of the Dakota Democrat. He left Sioux Falls for St. Louis to find another newspaper job, but didn’t take the much traveled press with him. In 1862, during the fighting between Indians and white Minnesotans, Sioux Falls was vacated and raided. Everything that could burn was set on fire; the stone building that housed the press was attacked and ransacked. As years passed, parts of the printing equipment were discovered by settlers and kept as souvenirs and pieces of the type turned up in Indian pipes. It seems that the early day newspaper venture yielded some fascinating and entertaining history of lasting value.

Introducing DERMAGLOW dermaplaning facial.

Dermaplaning is a minimally invasive procedure that exfoliates your skin removing unwanted vellus hair from the face while resurfacing the skin.

It can help reduce the appearance of minor skin imperfections and acne scars, as well as addressing concerns such as fine lines and dull and dry skin, leaving the skin refreshed and smooth.

Dermaplaning can be added on to any of your favorite Radiance Facials including Hydrafacials and our signature Pure Radiance Facial.