History Hotdish Ep. 41 - The Logan Family

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to History Hot Dish, a casual conversation about the
historic people and events that give Bismarket's unique flavor. History
Hot Dish is brought to you by the Bismarck Historical Society,
a local nonprofit whose mission is to learn, preserve, and
promote the history of Bismarck. Sit back, turn up the
volume and enjoy another helping of History Hot Dish.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome to another episode of History Hot Dish. I'm your
host Kate Waldera, a member of the Bismarck Historical Society's
Board of Directors. Today's episode is a special version of
History Hot Dish where we feature another important project of
the Bismarck Historical Society, the Prairie Pioneers Early Families of

(00:44):
Bismarck Programs. The Prairie Pioneers Project is a video collection
of twenty interviews with current family members from some of
Bismarck's early and influential families and residents. The Prairie Pioneer's
Early Family Only's a Bismarck project was funded through a
donation by Chad and Stacy Walker of Bismarck, a Cultural

(01:07):
Heritage grant through the State Historical Society of North Dakota
and donations from local history enthusiasts. The project was done
in collaboration with Matt Fern and his team at the
Creative Treatment. Matt is joining me today in the studio
to help bring you another tasty helping of history hot dish,

(01:29):
and of course, another wonderful partner in this project has
been the Dakota Media Access, where you can find each
of The Prairie Pioneer's original ten episodes, along with ten
new families and their stories of Bismarck that began airing
on Community Access in December. Matt, thank you for joining

(01:49):
me today to share some of your work with our audience.
For your listeners, please take a moment to introduce yourself
from the role that you played in this wonderful collection
of interviews and videos.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
Thanks for having me, Kate. I'm Matt Fern. I'm born
and raised here in Bismarck. It's my favorite city in
the whole world, and I've been running the Creative Treatment
for about fifteen years here in Bismarck. We do a
lot of ads across the state and across the country,
as well as podcasts and documentaries. My main my main

(02:24):
passion has always been telling the stories of North Dakota.
I did a docuseries called Daily to Codin that kind
of started out my whole, my whole filmmaking career, and
so when the opportunity to do Prey Pioneers came up,
I jumped on it. A lot of these names Walked
or Woodman, See, they have been around, you know, the

(02:46):
Bismarck community, my whole life, and so to put a
face to the name, to humanize and to actually hear
the story behind those names was really exciting, and so
I'm very grateful to be part of the project. And
it wasn't just me. I have a great team working
with me as well as the Bismarck Historical Society and
Dakota Media Access. But this has been just a really

(03:09):
awesome project where the Bismarck community has come together and
some of the histories.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Of these families have just been very unique, very interesting,
and as always, everyone learns a lot about the families
and their important part that they played. Today's episode of
History Hot Dish will feature the Logan family, one of
the first families to operate a grocery store in Bismarck's

(03:38):
early days. Fellow Bismarck Historical Society board member and regular
guests to history Hot Dish, as well as Bismarck history expert,
and Vadney reflects on her family's accomplishments and contributions to
Bismarck's rich history and share stories about a building her
grandfather had built in nineteen seventeen that still stands on

(04:02):
Third Street today. What can you share about Anne and
her interview on Prairie Pioneers.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
Well, again, this was another one where it was just
one person being interviewed, but you wouldn't know it. Anne,
I think is one of the best resources for history
in North Dakota, especially Bismarck. The amount of research she's done,
the amount of knowledge she has is it's pretty unrivaled here.
And so it was a joy filming this with her.

(04:32):
We filmed at her house and again, just so many
great stories and that building. You know, I drove by
that building many times, and that's the first time I
kind of looked up and saw the name on the
building after filming this, and and and yeah, it's been
a big part of Bismarck before my time. But I

(04:55):
think I love those stories where it's like a whole
other life lived, you know, a whole other you know,
many stories. I had no idea that was a grocery store.
I had no idea what the Logan family had had
done or accomplished. So yeah, I just think of Anne
and how lucky we are to have here, not only
in Bismarck, but just for the historical society. She's been

(05:17):
a huge resource a lot of these episodes. Anne does
research and help and so she's a big driving force
behind the historical society.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
And I know the grocery business that was Logan's. According
to the episode, their store was unique because it had
a bakery system on site and they also had a
butcher butcher shop on the premises, and they had a
livery dre delivery service. They delivered grocery supplies to Fort Lincoln,

(05:50):
you know, so they were very tied into it. They
were very progressive, you know, because they had a couple
of things that grocery stores up to that point had
not had. And it was a super episode. And of
course Anne is a dear friend of mine, so it
was so fun to listen to that episode. And on
that note, fellow listeners enjoy the Prairie Pioneers episode on

(06:13):
the Logan family.

Speaker 4 (06:15):
Experts say that your biggest connection to memory is your
sense of smell, and my mom always said to me
the two smells that she remembered from the grocery store
were spices and oranges.

Speaker 5 (07:11):
The Logan and Reed families both arrived in Bismarck in
eighteen seventy six. The families were in the grocery business
and provided a much needed service to the Bismarck community.
Austin Logan established Logan's Grocery in eighteen seventy seven with
only two hundred dollars to his name. In nineteen fifteen,

(07:31):
Austin son Roy bought the business from his father and
built the present day Logan building in nineteen seventeen.

Speaker 4 (07:41):
From the research that I've done, I found out that
his real name was James Austin Logan, but so was
his father, and so they chose just to call him
Austin Logan. And he arrived in Bismarck in eighteen seventy six.
He was only twenty one years old and he didn't
have a lot of money at the time, and he

(08:01):
started out briefly working in a restaurant. Then he opened
Logan grocery on Third Street in eighteen seventy seven, and
their slogan was we thank you. That was their slogan
throughout the whole time it was a grocery store. He
also was one of the original members of the Pioneers

(08:23):
Association of Burley County in eighteen eighty one. It was
a very busy year because they ended up building a
new building on the site of the original one. And
that's also the year that James Austin Logan married Lucinda McCully,
and that was March of eighteen eighty one, and he

(08:44):
passed away in October of nineteen sixteen. I just recently,
for the first time ever, saw a photograph for one
of my friends actually founded and sent it to me.
In it had had Lucinda McCully and my two great
aunts in it. She I don't know much about her
other than the fact that she was very active in

(09:05):
the Presbyterian Church. She was one of the first members
of the Presbyterian Church and also was very active in
their women's Presbyterian Ladies group.

Speaker 6 (09:16):
I think that I'm.

Speaker 4 (09:17):
Really proud about Logan Grocery because they did some things
that other grocery stores didn't do. For example, they furnished
the steamboats down at the landing with breads and pastries
and provided groceries for forty Abraham Lincoln. Also their livery
service or gray service, if you want to call it,

(09:39):
that they transported free to the Black Hills during the expedition,
including the Custo expedition that went there. Also, my great
grandfather was one of a group of men that came
from Bismarck and went to with a whole bunch of
wagons and a dray service to take provision to Custer

(10:01):
at the Little Big Horn. My mom told me that
behind the grocery store was where the livery stables were,
and they had they sold horses and catal out of there.
But one of the things they made a great deal
of money on was a great, big pursure on horse

(10:22):
that was a big dray horse that they studded out
and they were able to get quite a bit of
money from that stud service. Before refrigeration was common, of course,
ice came from the Missouri River to keep the perishables cold.
And one of the other families in Bismark that was
big and that was the Waktor Company. They did lots

(10:44):
of ice off of the river and would deliver it.
So Logan Grocery had a great, big, huge walk in
kind of a vault, type of an ice box. My
mom told me it was in the back of the
store near the butcher shop, and that butcher shop was
there so they could cut meat to order again during

(11:06):
sometimes unusual in a grocery store to have its own
butcher shop. Then there was a fire in August of
eighteen ninety eight that destroyed most of the store, and
the city insisted that any of the buildings that had
been burned in that great fire would be rebuilt with brick.
Austin Logan's son then, whose name was Roy Perry, the

(11:30):
bought the business from his father in nineteen fifteen, and
then he constructed the present day Logan building in nineteen
seventeen and it remained in that location on Third Street
between Maine and Broadway until nineteen forty one. One of
the things that they did that other grocery stores did
not do is they came up with a bakery system

(11:52):
that they could have right in their grocery store. And
it was called the Barker Baking system, and it was
to the grocery store, but If you look back into
the records of Bismarck's early bakeries, a lot of them
followed that same system that had been set up by
Logan Grocery to use inside their grocery store. In those days,

(12:14):
it was sort of like what it's happened to become
after COVID now, where you can order your things to
be delivered at your hosts. Well, in those days, people
charged they didn't pay at the grocery store or anyplace else,
and bills then would be sent out to customers and
they would pay them on a monthly basis. So as

(12:35):
the store continued to get bigger and bigger. After my
great aunt Irma joined the store, she worked doing most
of the things having to do with the ledgers and
the money and sending out the bills and so forth.
So after she graduated from high school, she joined the
firm or the grocery store. My long line of bismar

(13:00):
Chai goes all the way back to my Grandpa Logan.
He was born and grew up in Bismarck. He did
all of his schooling here and graduated from Bismarck High
School in nineteen ten. My grandpa Logan was a member
of the Masonic Lodge and also the Elks. But one
of the things he was very proud about is there
was a rotary club here in Bismarck that he was

(13:21):
one of the founding members for and was the secretary
and treasurer for that and short time president for that
rotary club. Shortly after my Grandpa Logan took over the
store was when he married my grandmother Ferne Reed, and
as she entered into the family, she also became the
vice president of Logan Grocery. My grandma was a very

(13:44):
small woman. She was only four to eleven, and she
used to say to me when I was growing up
that she was four eleven and shrinking. She was also
active in a club called the Mother's Club, which is
still actually in existence, and was one of the live
to be one of the oldest members of the Bismarck
Order of the Eastern Star. So, as you recall I

(14:09):
mentioned her family was involved with the Brilly Coneye Pioneers,
so she was also involved with that and was a
charter member of the Bismarck Girl Scolet Consul. The thing
I liked about Grandpa Grandma is that she didn't ever
hesitate to tell stories or sing songs. She had some
little ditties that she would always sing, and she always

(14:32):
had these little, I suppose learning experience kinds of things
that she would say. She was really quite a character.
My favorite story about my grandma and things that she
did for the grocery store have to do about a
holiday treat, and this took place during the Christmas season

(14:53):
and my mom and her two siblings would crack pecans
and walnuts. They would get a panty of for cracking them,
and then my grandma would salt and roast them with
her special little recipe, and then they would sell them
at the grocery store for a special holiday trade for
people coming in. That lasted throughout my childhood. My mom

(15:17):
always made the pecans. I don't remember the walnuts, but
we used to have salted pecans for a little treat
at Christmas time and I loved them. My mom's name
was Mary Lucinda Logan Vadney. My mom worked on Saturdays
in the store when she was in high school. And
one thing I found out that I had never known
was that while she was working at the grocery store,

(15:41):
she would also make trips to the drug stores nearby
and would feel extra things that people had on their
lists that weren't in the grocery store. So, in other words,
to please the customers. Not only did she rowned up
the items that they needed for healthcare, but sometimes she'd
pick up prescriptions for them from the Dorug store.

Speaker 6 (16:01):
My mom has filled me in.

Speaker 4 (16:02):
Most on what it looked like, because I never saw
it as a grocery store. It was closed ten years
before I was even born. But my mom said that
in the basement there were supplies and a canned inventory
like often you would have in a basement, sort of
a pantry area.

Speaker 6 (16:21):
She said.

Speaker 4 (16:21):
The upstairs had displays of fruits and vegetables, and then
there were great big bins behind the counters that held
everything from cookies and in bulk, to candy case and
so forth. One of the things that I've learned about
in my life is that experts say that your biggest
connection to memory is your sense of smell, and my

(16:44):
mom always said to me the two smells that she
remembered from the grocery store were spices and oranges. People
have said many times that Bismarck probably had more grocery
stores per capita than most but as Bismark grew, so
did the competition. More people came in and became grocers

(17:06):
or the stores that sold everything in those days. So
the person who was the owner of the proprietor of
that store had to work hard. They had to keep
a high profile, and they had to keep their customers.
And my mom again told me, because I only saw
little glimpses of this with my grandpa, really how hard

(17:29):
he worked, and that he would come home for dinner
and he would, you know, the store would be closed,
but he would come home for dinner and then later
go back to check the sales for the day when
my grandpa was still healthy when I was younger.

Speaker 6 (17:46):
There's a few things I remember.

Speaker 4 (17:47):
I remember in the basement, the office where he would
sometimes work in the evenings, even though he wasn't running
the grocery store. He would maybe have the minutes to
do for the rotary or something, and he would he
would go down there. That's where the laundry shoot came out.
It was in that room, and I'm sure my brother
has fond memories of climbing up and down the laundry

(18:08):
shoot from top to bottom when mir were kids. But
I also remember one of the things I really remember
that I said to my dad one time. I can
remember Grandpa must have been pretty tall, and because I
remember there were these trays above the registers that you
would open. There were metal trays and you would fill

(18:30):
them with water and that would be what would bring humidity.

Speaker 6 (18:33):
Throughout the host.

Speaker 4 (18:34):
Well, he had this great big thing that looked like,
you know, your typical gardening thing, only like great big,
huge thing to fill with the water. So I thought
he was really big and strong and everything. And of
course my dad said he wasn't even six feet tall.

Speaker 5 (18:50):
Helped tell the stories of Bismarck's past and become a
financial sponsor of this program. Contact info at Bismarck History
dot org to learn more.

Speaker 4 (19:04):
Again, I'm pretty pro to my grandfather because after he
retired in nineteen forty two, he did service for the
community for pretty much the rest of his life. And
the most important position that he received was to be
on the Burly Cony Selective Service what we call the
draft Board. He served there for eighteen years on that

(19:26):
and was several years it's chairman. And for that position
he had been recommended by the then governor Northakota Governor
fred Ondahl, and then from there was appointed to that
position by President Harry Turman in nineteen forty eight. He
also served as a businessman on the city's Owning Commission

(19:48):
and Special Assessment Board. When my grandpa started to get
ill with alphastima, I remember him sitting most of the
time in as a recliner.

Speaker 6 (19:58):
In those days.

Speaker 4 (19:58):
One of the things that I found very interesting that
they did for people who had trouble breathing. They made
these big sand bags and the sand bigs would go
on his diaphragm, So when he was laying in the reclinery,
he'd have this sandbag on his diaphragm to help push

(20:18):
the extra carbon dioxide out and help him breathe. My
grandpa died in September of nineteen sixty six at the
age of seventy four. I was a sophomore in high
school and my brother was a senior in high school.
It was only a few months later that my grandma

(20:39):
and grandpa would have celebrated their fiftieth anniversary in nineteen
sixty seven. Again, just like his father, there were several
Pallbeards that were really big name people here in Bismarck.
Doctor LW. Larson who actually lived in the house next
door to my grandparents, George Byrd, Charles Woodie, Haven't Lofstein.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
Reminder of our guests that have just joined us. You're
listening to a special serving of history Hot Dish on
Radio Access one oh two point five FM. I'm your
host Kate Waldera and today Matt Fern with the Creative Treatment,
has joined me in the studio to discuss the Bismarck
Historical Society's Prairie Pioneer programs that Matt and his team

(21:24):
helped create. Each episode has been adapted as an audio
broadcast to help the Bismarck Historical Society fulfill its mission
to learn, preserve, and promote Bismarck's rich history.

Speaker 4 (21:38):
This interesting side story about my dad was that during
high school he actually worked for a rival grocery store.
And that rival grocery store was Economy Grocery, and I
think it was right in the same neighborhood as Logan Grocery.
And my dad always said there was competition, but he said,
but amongst the grocery stores there was all was also cooperation.

(22:02):
He said that even though people worked very hard to
keep their regular customers, that when it came right down
to it, the stores work together and what their intent
was to provide a good service for the people of Bismarck.
As far as the Logan building is concerned, I only
remember the building as a rental property when my grandma

(22:23):
and grandpa were older, and then after my grandpa died.
There was a business on the main floor where the
grocery store used to be, and there were apartments up
above in the rooms up above, and I just remember
when I was pretty young going with Grandma down there
and helping clean out the apartments when somebody would be

(22:45):
leaving and would be trying to get it ready for
a new tenant to come in. I think because I
never knew the grocery store really. In essence, my memories
of my grandparents revolve around their hoss and their home
was at two twenty one West Avenue B. It's still there,

(23:07):
so it was in between Washington Street and Mandown Street.
I grew up at eight twenty eight Mandown Street, so
we were only about three and a half blocks away
from my grandparents. That means a lot to me that
I got to know that set of my grandparents. That
particular host was actually originally built in nineteen nineteen and

(23:28):
was owned by ed.

Speaker 6 (23:29):
Laar, who was eventually a mayor of Businarck.

Speaker 4 (23:32):
And as I can recall, there was probably never a
time that there wasn't at least one card table that
was set up, and Grandma would play a lot of Solitaire,
or she'd try and talk people into playing gin or
I learned Canasta from my mom, so I'm sure that
she learned it from her mother. But there was always

(23:52):
a card table set up there, and during the holidays,
of course it doubled as having a puzzle on it
or something that people were putting together. So anyway, that
kind of became my favorite place to go when Grandma
and Grandpa would host Christmas dinner and there would be
people there that I didn't even know who they were,

(24:13):
but I can remember going to the sunroom after eating
and all the adults were probably taking a nap, and
I would curl up with a book and on the
floor where there might have been a little ray of sun,
and I would read and then of course fall asleep
in the sunlight. And I remember that that side of

(24:41):
the family. I had to do a little bit of
work to really look at some of the things that
my mom had written down, because I only knew little
bits and pieces. So he arrived in Bismok in eighteen
eighty three, and his beginning of a business actually started
from the time he arrived. And I sometimes joked that

(25:03):
groceries must be in my blood, because he also had
a grocery store.

Speaker 6 (25:07):
It was called H. L.

Speaker 4 (25:09):
Reed and Company Groceries and Meats, and it was located
somewhere on sixth Street, and it also was very successful.
But he also got into politics a little bit more.
He was a city treasurer for two years, an alderman
for twelve years, and a member of the legislature in
nineteen oh one. Then the thing I guess I knew

(25:31):
most about was he was a very active member of
the Fireman's Association and served as their secretary for many
many years. And he was the first volunteer fire marshal
or fire chief. And the name of their company was
the Bismarck Cohs Company number one, and their host company

(25:52):
building was located on four Street. There were a lot
of prominent men that belonged to that volunteer fired department.

Speaker 6 (26:07):
One of the big.

Speaker 4 (26:08):
Branches of the family was the Wards and their patriarch
was a man by the name of William Oscar Ward.
He was actually my mom's great uncle, and he came
to Dakota Territory after the Civil War. And what happened
during the Civil War was that all these men joined
to help fight a war, and they wanted to get

(26:32):
out and retire and be paid their pension. Then the
United States government said, sorry, we don't have enough money
to do that, so you have to stay in long
enough to go out to the Indian Wars and stay
in Dakota or some of these other territories.

Speaker 6 (26:47):
So he ended up out here. So the Words put
their roots.

Speaker 4 (26:52):
Down on a ranch at the bottom of burn what's
called Burnt Boat Road. Now we're on ducks on Limit
today is right now. The Wards built the road to town.
So from there all the way to Avenue c It
was called Ward Road. Only part of it is now
called Ward Road, but it was because Oscar, William Oscar wrote,

(27:14):
Ward cut the road to town so they'd have a
way to get in. All the Logans in the and
the Awards are connected. Is that my grandfather's sister, whose
name was eleanor Logan, married a man named Mylon. Mylon
Logan or Mylon Ward, excuse me, and I actually knew him.

Speaker 6 (27:34):
I met Mylon when I never met Eleanor.

Speaker 4 (27:39):
But I met Mylon because that's the farm that my
dad and I would go out and ride horses at.
There are sons, I should say Mylon and Eleanor's sons,
Bob Ward and Logan Ward, even though they probably would
have been I would say second cousins to me because
they were there. Really my mom's cousins we called uncle,

(28:03):
so we called him Uncle Logan and Uncle Bob, and
each of them had their own farm. Like I said,
I like the idea that when people ask me about
my background here in Bismarck, that I can say, well,
do you guys know where Logan's on Third is?

Speaker 6 (28:20):
You know?

Speaker 4 (28:20):
And I used to be I could just say cafe
or rom and everybody had know what I was talking about.
Now that that's more of an office building, it's a
little bit different. But they also have put a new
sign up on the corner of that building that says
Logan's on Third on the southwest corner of Broadway and
Third and down Tom Tom Bismarck. And I'm pretty proud

(28:42):
about my roots in Bismarck. I can tell people my
great grandfather and grandfather's grocery store was right in the
heart of the down town, and it keeps that legacy
that my grandparents gave to me really quite in the
forefront of my mind. And having a lot of roots
here in does work really makes me proud, and I'm

(29:05):
glad that my grandma and my mom and my dad
took the time to tell me some of the stories
about my family.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
Matt, thank you again for joining me today. Please tell
our audience where they can find the video versions of
each of the Prairie Pioneer programs.

Speaker 3 (29:39):
Yeah, everyone can. The best place to go is going
to be Bismarckhistory dot org, the Bismark Historical Society's website.
There you'll have a link to the YouTube page, which
is Bismarck Historical Society, and there you can watch all
the past episodes of Prey Pioneers, as well as other
programs produced by the Bismarck Historical Society.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
Thank you for listening to History Hot Dish.

Speaker 6 (30:02):
If you like what you heard.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
The Bismarck Historical Society hosts programs and events throughout the year.
We welcome all those with an interest in local history
to join us. For more information about programs or membership,
visit our website Bismarkhistory dot org or find us on Facebook.
You can find History Hot Dish on one o two
point five FM, Radioaccess dot org, and anywhere you find
great podcasts. History Hot Dish is produced by the Bismarck

(30:30):
Historical Society in partnership with Dakota Media Access