Dakota Territory - Wanotan and Antelope Lake Ranches
(Dakota Territory) DESCRIPTION OF WANOTAN AND ANTELOPE LAKE RANCHES – DAKOTA TERRITORY, U.S.A. Press of George H. Buchanan and Company, Philadelphia. 1889. 29 pgs. Three maps with one being a folding map.
A rare promotional advertising large areas of ranch and farm land in Cass County, near Fargo and Church County which is in north-central North Dakota. The seller was likely the wealthy Philadelphia investor and land speculator William Hinckle Smith (1861-1943) and his son Joseph Frailey Smith who was a director of the Northern Pacific Railroad, who was looking to sell before North Dakota statehood became official in 1889. The Wanotan Ranch, described here as the “home ranch” and documented with three maps of the property, was a 3,920 acre ranch located in the Red River Valley, where the “soil requires no fertilizer, the climate obviates any need of irrigation, and there are no trees or stones to be cleared from the land….” Perhaps of utmost importance is that Wanotan was close to the Northern Pacific Railroad and the Minneapolis & Manitoba Railroad, allowing for the large-scale production of commodity crops, particularly wheat. The Antelope Lake Ranch, of only 480 acres was “not adapted to farming,” however it is “one of the finest stock regions in the Territory...here stock can roam over many thousands of acres of Government land, and find an unlimited quantity of the most nutritious grasses.”
The “improvements” to the ranches were substantial. At Wanotan, there were thirty-two structures, including four barns, three houses and a boarding house, numerous box stalls, and other specialized structures for chickens, hogs, etc. The Antelope Lake Ranch had three barns and several other structures. The pamphlet also list a valuation of the ranch properties, an estimate of profits, future of the draft horse industry, future of wheat growing, other enterprises that may be entered into, further description of the Red River Valley, its soil, climate, crops, etc. plus other related ranch information. The author strongly recommends acquiring both ranches together, since “in business of growing wheat and breeding horses, there is, of course, a possibility, but very little probability that misfortunes would overtake both branches in any one year.”
OCLC list only two copies...one at Yale and one at the Minnesota Historical Society.
OCLC 78478564. William Hinckle Smith Collection, RH MS P921, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Libraries.
Extremely minor wear, overall in vg cond.