291028 Topic: Wenatchee and National Apple Week

The main route of the Great Northern Railway was essentially from St. Paul, Minnesota, west across North Dakota, Montana, the northern Idaho panhandle, and across Washington to Everett and Seattle. There were many alternate routes and branch lines, as well as routes where reciprocal traffic rights were arranged, such as the line of the Spokane, Portland, and Seattle Railway (jointly controlled by the GN and the Northern Pacific Railway, which shared office space in an adjacent area of the same St. Paul office building as the GN).

Throughout its corporate existence – from about 1890 until the 1970 merger that created Burlington Northern – the Great Northern Railway enjoyed a significant amount of commercial success due to well-considered diversification. Some of this diversification was represented by the types of raw materials and products shipped on the railroad, and some was represented by various modes of transportation utilized to move both freight and passengers. In addition to the obvious railroad operations, the GN also operated a number of ships on the Great Lakes and across the Pacific Ocean. They also briefly operated a bus line in Minnesota that became a predecessor to the Greyhound Bus Company. In the late 1920s, the railroad even gave strong consideration to entering into a business relationship with Northwest Airways. The GN developed an extensive presence in the Mesabi iron range in northern Minnesota. The railroad provided one of the most significant conduits of wheat and other grains from the vast agricultural areas of North Dakota and Montana, as well as livestock from the ranges in those territories. Timber and various timber products were shipped in large quantities from the Pacific Northwest to eastern markets.

 

Among these “commercial districts,” if you want to call them that, was the apple growing region in the vicinity of Wenatchee, Washington. Commercial apple growing caught on early in the Wenatchee valley (“early” for that part of the country – about the 1880s), due to large and accessible areas with rich soil, ample sunlight, cool nights, and abundant fresh water (albeit made more practical once an irrigation project channeled much of the local water resources to the orchards where the water was put to greatest use).

The broadcast of October 28, 1929, was a story of the Wenatchee apple harvest. The Old Timer began the skit by convincing a New York playwright named Morton to come out west with him. The two were enjoying apples purchased from a street vendor in New York City (the Big Apple, ironically), when Morton got a notion to get out of the city for a while by finding the place where the tasty apple originated. The Old Timer checked the apple box for a label, and confirmed his suspicion as to where the apples were from:

An illustration of the Old Timer, actor Harvey Hays

PIONEER:        . . . Now let me see th’ box they come in.… Um huh! Jest as I thought. They’re Wenatchee apples.

MORTON:       Wenatchee? Where’s that?

PIONEER:        Wenatchee is one of th’ prettiest little cities you ever saw, out in th’ state of Washington. They call it th’ apple capital of th’ world. I was kinda figgerin’ on stoppin’ off there on my way out to Seattle. Got an old friend out there – old Joe Trent – an’ he wants me to come an’ visit a spell with him.

MORTON: That settles it! We’ll both go to Wenatchee! Is it a go, old top? (SLAPS HIM ON BACK)

PIONEER: Sure it’s a go, but you don’t need to knock my apple outta my hand!

MORTON: Oh, chuck that! I’ll buy you another apple – in Wenatchee.

The Wenatchee apple harvest story evolved into a romance between Morton (the New Yorker), and the daughter of the Old Timer’s friend, Joe Trent. Shirley Trent cooked up a delicious dinner for everyone, topped off with a scrumptious apple cobbler. When asked how she learned to make such a tasty dessert, she said she found the recipe in a booklet distributed by the Great Northern Railway. At the conclusion of the program, the announcer and the Old Timer discussed the booklet:

ANNOUNCER: That girl in tonight’s story did pretty fast work with that apple cobbler and I’m thinking there’re a whole lot of young ladies listening who will want to know whether there really is a magic formula for those cobblers. In your story you said the Wenatchee folks had prepared a little souvenir for Empire Builders listeners which contained apple recipes and pictures of the Wenatchee country. Was that just a part of your story or can they really get it by sending for it?

 PIONEER:         Dog my cats. Yes! Just by sending a request to the Great Northern Railway at St. Paul, Minnesota.

The delectable aroma of freshly baked apple cobbler wafted through the ether that evening and, via radio sets and vivid imaginations, permeated homes throughout much of the country. The ensuing flood of requests for the GN’s Wenatchee apple booklet was concrete testimony to the growing level of interest in the Empire Builders radio series.

 

Over the years I’ve acquired quite a number of collectibles and artifacts of the Great Northern Railway. I have at least a few different booklets or flyers distributed by the GN to promote Wenatchee and the apple industry. However, I still don’t have firm proof of what the booklet was that the GN distributed in connection with this radio show.

 I would be enormously grateful for any information that would help solve this mystery.

Please let me know if you have a copy of, or are familiar with, a publication that fits the description mentioned in this episode of Empire Builders. The continuity does not clearly say the item was published by the GN, nor does it even say it was published for the GN. Instead, the announcer states “the Wenatchee folks had prepared a little souvenir” that contained “apple recipes and pictures of the Wenatchee country.”

Among the items in my collection are a couple of die-cut booklets (apple shaped) that the GN put out. One of these appears to be from about 1933, and is therefore not early enough.

 

Circa 1933 apple booklet. Author's collection.

 

The Minnesota Historical Society has vast holdings of material (including advertising samples), and a couple files listed in their online finding aid seem to be promising [Location 133.H.8.5B, Box 10]:

 

File No. 1143. Wenatchee Apples, Dining Car Dept. National Apple Week, 1929. Daily.

File No. 1145. The Story of Wenatchee Apples. Booklet

 

The second item, located in File 1145, is similar to the 1933 edition of the apple-shaped booklet that I have, but it appears to be situated among other items produced in 1929. In any event, I don’t get to the Twin Cities very often, so it may be awhile before I can look into this.

I’d love to be able to post the apple cobbler recipe from the booklet distributed to listeners of Empire Builders back in 1929, but at this time I cannot. Maybe someday I’ll find it. If you can help, please drop me a line.

 

 

 

291021 - Topic: Montana cattle drives

With no audio recordings known to exist for these early radio broadcasts, it’s all we can do to speculate about the content of the shows. At least with copies of the continuities available, such as is the case with this episode of Empire Builders, we do have a pretty solid idea of the story line and characters, with the understanding that many times the continuities might be changed at the last minute, or the actors might (and probably did) ad lib their lines some. With the 10/21/1929 episode of Empire Builders, I located a copy of the continuity that is clearly marked in the margin of the cover page with a hand-written note to Ralph Budd, president of the Great Northern Railway. It was written by his executive assistant, Harold M. Sims. The note reads “Mr. Budd – this is the second revision. Further revisions however are being made.” Unless another copy of the continuity turns up, this may be the best we’ll ever have to go on. On the upside, though, it seems to be complete. This story is another example of the work of continuity writer Edward Hale Bierstadt, employed by NBC.

The continuity indicated that the program began in typical fashion with a musical piece, fading out so the announcer could be heard:

Orchestra in with cowboy or western airs. This should be orchestrated so that it includes either two banjos or a banjo and accordion. Fade down orchestra so that the instrumental duo holds the air alone. Fade out.

The announcer then stated: “You are listening to EMPIRE BUILDERS, a program sponsored by the Great Northern Railway.” This was followed by a musical interlude: “The instrumental duo in again, this time as an accompaniment to a male quartette, singing an old (1870-80) cowboy or western song. Conclude.”

This music was intended to help set the scene on a Montana cattle ranch, the Lazy Seven. The opening dialog was between the Old Timer and a young man named Billy. They just listened to the quartette mentioned above.

PIONEER:          (Chuckles)  Dog my cats, Billy, I’m glad you asked me out here! This cattle business may have changed some out here in Montana, this last generation or so, but the boys that run it haven’t changed a mite. Same lot of singin’ fools they was back in my day.

BILLY:                Guess they haven’t changed much … Say, I’m sure glad to get you out here to the ranch. Soon as I heard you were over in Glacier Park I wired you. Why, doggone it, sir, I don’t believe you’ve been here since father died.

PIONEER:          Billy, I don’t believe I have. When you get as old as me, you get tied up in all sorts of fool things that keep a-holdin’ you down … I tell you though, this up-to-date ranchin’ you boys are doin’ is sure different from the old days. How many head you reckon to ship yearly?

BILLY:                 About five thousand.

PIONEER:          Think of that now! Five thousand! An’ no distance at all to drive.

BILLY:                No, the drive don’t amount to much. The Great Northern runs right through the cattle country, and we ship direct east on their trains.

PIONEER:          Yes, it’s mighty different – the old trail drives, the old round-ups, an’ the old type of brandin’ iron have all gone into the discard. An’ not much loss either. If I was in the cattle business today I wouldn’t miss any of ‘em any more than I would the old fashioned two-gun men.

BILLY:                You’d think to read some of those fool books by easterners that the old west didn’t have much but bad men in it.

PIONEER:          Shucks, son, they jest don’t know any better. An’ then too sometimes a man would get a name fer bein’ bad when he was jest as harmless – well, as I am fer instance. (CHUCKLES)  Did I ever tell you the story of the day I first came out to this ranch? Some time before you was born, it was.

BILLY:                No, you haven’t. Come on, let’s sit up here on the fence, and have the story now.

PIONEER:         All right. I’m with you. Jest about now when the sun is settin’ an’ the plains are turnin’ purple in the dusk, is a pretty good time fer a story … Well,  ‘twas round-up time when this story happened, an’ some of the boys from this here ranch was out on the range with their ropes an’ brandin’ irons.

In order to transition into the story alluded to by the Old Timer, the continuity called for the following sound effects:

LAUGHTER. A SNATCH OF COWBOY SONG. EXCLAMATIONS. WORK INTO GENERAL CONFUSION OF ROUND UP, WITH BELLOW OF CATTLE, CLATTER OF HOOFS AND ORDERS AS THE MEN THROW AND BRAND THE CATTLE.

Cowboys named Shorty, Thorpe, and Jim, were busy branding some cattle when the local sheriff arrived and chatted them up. One of the boys teased the sheriff with what sounds like an old-time crack equivalent to donut shop allusions:  “What are you doin’ so far away from the front stoop of the post office?” After engaging in a few minutes of good-natured ribbing, the sheriff finally shared the main reason for being there:

Well, news come in that we can expect a little stranger in our midst most any time. He’s a two-gun, hard shootin’ bad man, an’ he’s wanted fer stickin’ up a train, an’ a whole string of other things as long as your arm – includin’ cattle rustlin’. If you see him, an’ want to call him anythin’, he answers to the name of Texas Jack.

It turns out that Texas Jack was an ornery, two-gun bad man. With the boys warned to be on the lookout for Texas Jack, the sheriff rode back to Dead Timber Corners. Then one of the cow hands, Thorpe, heads back to the ranch house to alert the ranch owner, Bill Sawyer, about the sheriff’s visit and news of Texas Jack.

About this time, the Pioneer (“the YOUNG Timer,” presumably), rode up to where the branding was going on and chatted up Shorty, one of the hands. Shorty asked the Pioneer where he’s from, and learns he’s from Texas. Shorty got just a little concerned until the Pioneer assured him his name was not Jack. The Pioneer asked for nothing more than “makin’s” for a hand-rolled cigarette, and some bacon. Shorty told him he could get some bacon up at the ranch house, and asked the Pioneer if he had ever heard of Texas Jack. When Shorty explained that he intended to go out and look around for Texas Jack, the Pioneer warned him “better be careful, puncher. They tell me that Texas Jack is – bad!”

In the meantime, the ranch owner’s younger sister, Dorothy, had decided to ride into town. As the Pioneer and Shorty were talking, they suddenly realized the prairie grass near the cattle herd was ablaze. As they tried to rally the other ranch hands to fetch hand tools to stem the fire, Shorty and the Pioneer noticed Dorothy riding in the vicinity of the herd, and realized the cattle were beginning to stampede. Seeing the danger Dorothy was in, the Pioneer and Shorty had this exchange:

PIONEER:         They’ve already gone loco, puncher. The herd’s stampedin’! We’ve got to ride ‘em off!

SHORTY:           Can’t do nothin’ yet, jest us two! Let ‘em run ‘emselves tired.

PIONEER:          Say! Them cattle are headed straight for that girl on the horse!

SHORTY:           Law-dy! Miss Dorothy! She can’t outride them cattle on that colt of her’s! They’ll trample her sure!

PIONEER:          Look at that girl ride! She’ll get through all right if she can ride like that!

SHORTY:           She’s down! She’s off the horse! He stumbled in a gopher hole! Now they’ll trample her sure!

PIONEER:         Not if I can help it, they won’t!

                                 (THUNDER OF HOOFS FADING OUT)

SHORTY:           Well, of all the guts! Lookit him ride off them cattle! Lookit that baby lion ride! He may get her yet!

This passage of dialog is a fairly blatant but instructive example of how the author, Edward Hale Bierstadt, used the conversation of Shorty and the Pioneer to descriptively move the scene along for the radio audience. In some sense, the two men might be confused for play-by-play commentators for a sporting event. There is unseen action taking place, but the characters in the story describe the action with sufficient detail to allow the listener to visualize the scene. Naturally, this kind of dialog would be inappropriate for a stage play or motion picture, so it’s probably fair to say this early generation of radio script writers were still in the rudimentary stage of honing their craft.

As one might expect, the Pioneer succeeded in rescuing the fair maiden. She tried to thank him, and to encourage him to come up to the ranch house and meet her brother, but he declined and said he must be getting along:

DOROTHY:       I can’t – very well thank you. It’s more than I can thank you for.

PIONEER:         Don’t try. I’m just glad I was there.

DOROTHY:       But you must come back to the ranch house, and let me tell my brother …

PIONEER:          No, I reckon not. I’ll just be ridin’ along, thank you just the same.

DOROTHY:       You must stay – please!

PIONEER:         I’ll just be ridin’ on. Mabbe we’ll meet again, Miss – Miss Dorothy.

DOROTHY:      We will meet again! What is your name?

PIONEER:        (CHUCKLES)  Well, you might call me – Texas.

The Pioneer, seeing that Dorothy was safe and sound, left her with Shorty and rode off. Dorothy Sawyer and ranch hand Shorty had a brief discussion about whether they had in fact just met Texas Jack. With a musical bridge as a segue, the scene shifted ahead again to the conversation between the Old Timer and Billy, on the Lazy Seven Ranch.

PIONEER:         Well, Billy, that’s the way I first came to this ranch – a long time ago.

BILLY:               And were you – were you Texas Jack?

PIONEER:        (CHUCKLES)  Bless you no, son! Not every well built man from Texas who had dark hair and eyes was a train robber, even in those days! Shorty an’ that Dorothy girl jest took a mite too much for granted. That’s all.

BILLY:               It certainly is a corking good story.  (DISTANT TRAIN WHISTLE)  Listen! There’s the evening train on the Great Northern. That’s the Empire Builder, their new, crack passenger outfit.

Promotional pinback button distributed by the Great Northern Railway, circa 1909 (Author's collection).

After a few minutes of unabashed commentary about the virtues of Montana cattle country, the thinly-veiled advertisement for the show’s sponsor wraps around again to a close:

BILLY:                Oh yes, we’ve got it all and, coming back to where we started, the Great Northern serves it all … By the way, you didn’t tell all of that story of yours. Come on now! Just how did it end?

PIONEER:         (CHUCKLES)  Well now, Billy, if you want to hear the rest of that story, I reckon you’d better wait till the next time you come out to visit on the west coast – an’ then you can ask your Aunt Dorothy!

Announcer John S. Young then brought the broadcast to its conclusion:

ANNOUNCER:   You have been listening to Empire Builders, a program sponsored by the Great Northern Railway. Next Monday evening at the same hour, you will be given another romance of the West.

                                   (FAR OFF TRAIN WHISTLE)

Even if that was not the final draft, it wasn’t too bad. I wish we could all have listened to the show over the radio, but I guess this will have to do. Adios till next time …

291014 - Topic: North Dakota

For this episode of Empire Builders, the story centered on wheat farming in North Dakota, and the miraculous manner in which the elopement of two young lovers brought an end to an old grudge between their fathers. The young couple were Jimmy Williamson and Helga Swanson, whose fathers developed large wheat farms on the northern plains.  

According to the program’s continuity, the broadcast began with the playing of “The Yellow and Blue,” which was evidently intended to set the tone for the opening scene on the campus of the North Dakota Agricultural College. One thing the writers were missing in those days was the internet. In the first few lines of script, Helga Swanson even refers to the music as “The Yellow and Blue.” Turns out, though, that the alma mater of the North Dakota Agricultural College (now known as North Dakota State University) is called “The Yellow and the Green.”

Here’s a link to a men’s glee club a cappella rendition of“The Yellow and Blue,” which happens to be the alma mater of the University of Michigan. Perhaps Andy Sannella, Empire Builders musical director, couldn’t get his hands on sheet music for the correct tune, but one must wonder if there were any Wolverines tuning in who wondered why their alma mater was being usurped that way. For a production that prided itself in a high degree of accuracy, it seems odd that a misstep such as this – one that must have been glaringly obvious to at least a portion of the listening audience – was perpetuated on the air. It was not uncommon for those associated in some way with a broadcast’s topic to make a point of listening in to revel in the positive attention brought to their particular group or cause. You have to think it was a bit jarring for people associated with either North Dakota Agricultural College or the University of Michigan to hear the inappropriate song being played.

The story opened without the usual appearance of the Old Timer, focusing immediately on Jimmy and Helga as they discussed their futures upon graduating from North Dakota Agricultural College. The only thing disturbing the two was the ongoing feud between their fathers, Al Williamson and Nils Swanson.

I digress here for a moment . . .

One of the unexpected pleasures of writing this blog about the Empire Builders series is that, due to the GN’s and the NBC staff’s efforts to tie most of their stories to historical fact, it’s actually an interesting education sometimes to read the available continuities and ferret out some of the historical background on which their stories were based. This one is no exception. I’ve never been associated in any way with wheat farming, nor have any of my ancestors going back at least a few generations, so I had either not heard of wheat stem rust, or having heard about it I ignored it. Turns out it was, and apparently still is, a really big deal among wheat growers of this country – especially in the territory of the U.S. once served by the Great Northern Railway.

In the Empire Builders story of October 14, 1929, wheat farmers Williamson and Swanson found out their offspring decided they wanted to get married. This riled them both into a lather. It turned out the two of them had a grudge going back many years, since the days when their son and daughter were children. It all had to do with wheat stem rust, or simply "wheat rust," a virulent fungus that was in real life an enormous problem for the wheat-growing industry in the 1920’s and beyond.

Swanson learned that the wheat rust fungus survives the harsh winters of the northern plains by migrating onto nearby barberry bushes. The barberry bush, which can grow to 15 feet high or more, was a popular hedge plant brought over from Europe. Many homesteaders of Minnesota and the Dakota and Montana Territories found barberry bushes to be an appealing hedge plant that acted as a windbreak on the otherwise barren northern plains. Apparently, there are at least 400 species of barberry plant. One of the more common species, and one that does not contribute to the wheat rust problem as I understand it, is a Japanese variety commonly sold by plant nurseries.

It probably seems sloppy or lazy of me to quote a Wikipedia entry, but I’ve found some authoritative USDA and university extension sites that basically say the following, just in even more verbose prose:  “Berberis vulgaris (European barberry) is the alternate host species of the wheat rust fungus (Puccinia graminis), a grass-infecting rust fungus that is a serious fungal disease of wheat and related grains. For this reason, cultivation of B. vulgaris is prohibited in many areas, and imports to the United States are forbidden.”  ["Berberis vulgaris" - Wikipedia]

From about 1918 until into the 1970s, there was an aggressive barberry eradication program in this country designed to save the grain industry in the plains states by attempting to remove all traces of barberry bushes in the affected states. Here’s a map of the contiguous U.S. showing the extent of the effort:

It seems the barberry bush problem is beginning to renew itself. This review of the 10/14/1929 Empire Builders broadcast could easily spiral down into a treatise on fighting wheat rust, but you can always do a little sleuthing about it yourself, if you like.

In the meantime, back to the story . . .

Swanson was aware of the threat to wheat crops posed by wheat rust (and the problem of allowing barberry bushes to thrive in wheat country), and he was also convinced of the virtues of diversified farming. He tried to persuade his friend and fellow farmer, Al Williamson, to diversify his crops and to eradicate barberry plants on his land. Williamson refused, and the two long-time friends very nearly came to blows. Their friendship badly damaged, Williamson moved a hundred miles away, bitterly demanding that Swanson mind his own business and stop trying to tell him how to farm his own land.

The two freshly-minted college grads tried to talk their fathers through their dispute, but all the old hard feelings welled up once again, and conversation died. Jimmy and Helga got desperate and decided to elope. This evolved into a somewhat convoluted plan for Helga to ride the Empire Builder train to New Rockford (where naturally she bumped into the Old Timer), and for her beau Jimmy to meet her there. Eventually, Swanson and Williamson realized what was transpiring, and they came to their senses on behalf of the happiness of their children. Williamson came away with a new perspective about the value of what Swanson was telling him all along.

As far as anyone knows, they all lived happily ever after.

 

 

291007 - Topic: San Francisco and California

As the 27th broadcast of the Empire Builders series, this episode told a story of early California. It was billed in press accounts as a “flash back to the ‘days of 49’ when California was the El Dorado of the gold seeker, and then will come down to the present time and the riches the pleasure seeker will find there.”

The day after the broadcast, a newspaper recap of the show, printed by the Helena (Montana) Daily Independent, gave this report:

Radio Program Tells of Early Romance in Spanish California

Glamorous Spanish California, in the days when Russia was grasping for control of the west coast of North America, was recalled in a historical romance broadcast last night over the National Broadcasting Company network, as the second of the Empire Builders series being presented by Great Northern Railway.

The dramatization, historically authentic, was the old pioneer's story of the romance of Count Rezanov and Concepcion Arguello. It was located in San Francisco when the Russian nobleman came on the joint mission of securing food for his starving countrymen in Alaska and determining the feasibility of the Russians losing the feeble grip of Spain on the balmy territory of Alta California.

 

Count Nikolay Petrovich Rezanov (1764-1807) was a Russian who was sent to Alaska by the Czar to check the condition of Russian fur trappers. He found them to be in dire straits. This was in 1806. The Count sailed south with his ship, the Juno, to Fort Ross (near San Francisco), the closest port where provisions could be obtained.

Count Rezanov

Rezanov learned that the Spaniards he encountered in California had firm restrictions against trading with foreigners. But the Count fell for the teen-aged daughter of Don José Dario Arguello, the commandant of San Francisco. The Count also negotiated successfully with the Spanish clergy, and managed to secure ample provisions to return to the Russian fur trappers at New Archangel in Alaska.

Maria Concepcion Arguello

The Count left his young lover behind, intending to see to the trappers in Alaska, then to travel across Russia and even to Spain to gain approval (from the Czar and Pope, respectively) of his marriage to the young Catholic maiden. Travelling across Russia on horseback, Count Rezanov fell ill and died in March of 1807. The tragic tale of his romance with Maria Concepcion Arguello was memorialized not only in this episode of Empire Builders, but also in a 1937 novel, “Rezánov and Doña Concha,” by Gertrude Atherton. Much later, a popular rock opera titled “Juno and Avos” (the names of Rezanov’s two ships) debuted in Moscow in 1981.