History Hotdish Ep. 42 - The Peterson 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 of about the
families and their important part that they played. Today's episode
of History hot Dish will feature the Peterson family, one
of the first families to operate a long standing hotel

(03:37):
in Bismarck that many of our listeners may remember the
Grand Pacific Hotel, which sat on the northeast corner of
Fourth Street and Broadway Avenue. We will hear stories and
memories from Vern, John, Terry, and Dave Peterson family members,
whose fathers operated the hotel into the nineteen seventies until

(03:58):
its closure. The building was demolished as part of the
federally backed Urban Renewal Program, which was responsible for the
demolition of several Bismarck properties in the late nineteen sixties
and nineteen seventies. What are some of the things about
the Peterson family interview that stood out to you, Matt.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
I loved just meeting the family, the brothers. We called
him Vern. We filmed at his house, and he had
so many amazing stories and so much actual elements from
the Grand Pacific, from silverware, from signage, so many pictures,

(04:43):
and so that was really cool to be able to
see it and touch it. And he had so many
good stories and he really was very honest. I think
some of them we didn't even put it there because
there's some pretty wild stories of his youth. I think
we couldn't on public public airwaves. And then also the
interview with his brothers. That was all done over zoom.

(05:07):
They're all over the country. That that was really great
hearing their stories. And the one thing I was shocked
was hearing of the music scene that existed at the
Grand Pacific and they had such bands as famous as
the Supremes come and sing in downtown Bismarck, and I

(05:27):
had no idea that that happened. So that was a
great little story. And and also just another story that
stands out is just them talking about their dad. I
forget the gentleman's name, but who ran the Grand Pacific
Hotel really seemed to have a positive impact on the community.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
They told a.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
Great story of years later, after the hotel had closed,
two of the brothers were stranded on a rural farm
after their car died, and they found this farm and
it turns out that this random farmer once was given
a place to stay from their dad years ago when
he came to Bismarck. And so that was pretty wild

(06:11):
to just see the impact of the family continuing on.
But really great guys, a lot of really funny stories
and fun stories. And the Grand Pacific was before my time,
and it's for contacts. I believe it's located where the
Toaster Frog was, right across from Parogue, so I remember.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
Right, or else it's where the bank.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
I thought that was the other hotel, or maybe you
guys might have to google a little and it challenged.
I thought it was kind of where across from Pargue
where the toaster Frog was in my head, but that's
I might be thinking wrong. But for our listeners, maybe
do a little extra research.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
It's fine, for sure, but northeast corner of fourth in Broadway.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
And yeah, but great episode, really fun. The Peterson's were great,
and vern I was still in Bismarck. I just saw
him checking his mail the other day downtown and that
really great family.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
And then sit back, listeners and enjoy the Prairie Pioneers
program featuring the Peterson family.

Speaker 4 (07:25):
In the Stakhouse are in the bar, one of these
oil guys. I flipped over the place Matt and did
a lease that valued about almost a half a million
dollars and had a momitorize and everything on this placement
right in the GP.

Speaker 5 (08:25):
John Lewis Peterson arrived in Bismarck in eighteen eighty one
and opened the Pacific Hotel, named in honor of the
Northern Pacific Railroad that ran through the city, and died
only a few short years after its opening. His widow
married Henry Tatley, and they continued to run the hotel,
were modeling many times over the years and renaming it

(08:47):
to the Grand Pacific Hotel. After their stepfather retired in
nineteen twenty four, brothers John Junior and Frederick Peterson purchased
and ran the Grand Pacific along with other Bismarck hotels,
until coussins John and Vernon Peterson closed the hotel in
nineteen seventy four.

Speaker 4 (09:06):
The Grand Pacific Hotel was started by my great grandfather
Lewis Peterson, and he homesteaded initially north of Detroit Lakes
at Homestead. After a couple of years moved to Bismarck,

(09:31):
and he was a bricklayer by trade, but he realized
that that was the railroad ended there and there was
opportunity there. It was kind of a little boomtown going
with steam moats and everything, and so it started from
there and it was very successful at that time. In fact,

(09:57):
he started a stage line between Bismarck and Washburn for mail,
and then that was with John Sutherland, and actually those
two guys brought in the first, according to what I read,

(10:19):
first telephone line between Washburn and Bismarck, Lewis became became
ill and I believe it was cancer, but I'm not sure.
But anyway, he ended up taking his own life and
he was only forty years old. And after his death,

(10:43):
my great grandmother married Henry Tatley, which, interestingly enough, Henry
Tatley started as a driver one of those stages that
drove the stagecoach from Bismarck to Washburn, and my guess

(11:08):
is that's where he met Carolyn. So two years after
that they got married and he eventually and I think
he bought the GP in eighteen ninety seven. Before that,
he had I don't know if he built it, but

(11:31):
he might have managed. I know he was a manager
either building was called the Western Western Hotel. I always
had to go to church on Sunday, and like any
other kid about that age, I didn't want to get
out of bed, and so I said, Okay, I'll go

(11:52):
to church, but it's got to be the eleven o'clock service,
and of course I needed a ride and it was
Trinity lutherm Church on there. So my mother would drop
me off, and I'd wave goodbye and walk front door,
and then immediately scoot out the left door and then

(12:13):
shoot down to the Bismarck Hotel, because between the Bismarck
Hotel and the Grand Pacific Hotel was the GP Newsstand.
And I found out that the old Bismarck Hotel was
actually the original Pacific Hotel that my great grandfather had

(12:36):
started and those renovations, Henry Tatley had severed the old
Pacific Hotel and left part of it for the Bismarck Hotel,
and then the other part was actually moved across the
street and became like First Warranty and Trust Bank for

(13:03):
a while. So I would play the pinball machines, the
pinball machine in the back, and then when church was
about over, I'd scoot out and come in the side
door and my mother would be there to pick me up.

Speaker 6 (13:20):
My dad, his dad. I believe my brother Dave would
give us a date, but I think it was about
nineteen forty. Both my dad and my uncle Vernon were
going to school at that time, the Agricultural College in
Bargo now North Dakota State, and then they had to

(13:44):
drop out of school to come back and run the hotel,
which they knew nothing about my whatsoever, but they managed
and the hotel became kind of the center of the
North to go to oil industry in the fifties and

(14:04):
really helped. I mean, both my dad and my uncle
were working seven days a week in long hours at
the time. My grandfather, Drank I had, was always in
the real estate business and much like my father, who

(14:26):
if a farmer came into town and just flat didn't
have the money to stay at the GPO hotel, he
would comp them and camped the family for the stay.
My grandfather who built many many homes in Bizmarck, most

(14:48):
of them in the nineteen forties were track homes, quite small.
You still can see them if you drive an east
Bismark and then later on Island Acres. But my grandfather
would also provide for the homeowners if they could not
afford a washer or a dryer or other appliances, would

(15:10):
buy a form and say, well, pay me when you can.
And I had, and I'm sure my other brothers have
had the same experience. Both people have come up to
us and just say what wonderful parents or wonderful grandparents
we had. Because of their generosity.

Speaker 7 (15:29):
There's a story that I'll tell you about this one
farmer near Pettibone, North Dakota. John and I went hunting
there right after Thanksgiving. When Dad called this and there
was a flight of northern ducks and geese down. He said, boys,
you got to come out and hunt. So our wives
gave us permission. We drove out late that day and

(15:55):
as we headed towards Petabone, I said, John, you got
to drive. And he was driving his gravel road, and
of course there weren't anybody. There was anybody on the road,
so he's driving fairly fast and I fell asleep until
we went flying off this little tiny hill. Yeah, the
car came crashing down and then all of a sudden,
you hear this grinding noise and I said, rap, I

(16:19):
think the oil pants broke or something. And John says, oh,
no problem. See that farmer there was a farm over there.
We'll just go to his farmyard. One light lit three
am in the morning. We pull in and about three
minutes later, the farmer comes out and says, boys, what's wrong.

(16:39):
And I said, well, here's what happened. I think my
oil pand shot. He said, well, no problem, let's take
it in the barn. I got a hoist, got it
up in the hoist oil scrip, and Lucy says, yep,
that's it. I'm going to drain it and I got
a welder here. I'm going to fix it for you.
So as he was doing all this work, I said, John,

(16:59):
how much honeyed you got? We got to give this
guys at least twenty thirty bucks or something like that.
And so we scraped up some money and he finally
got it all fixed, got the car down, and so
John went over to hand them the money. He said,
you know, you don't owe me a thing. And that's

(17:21):
what I remember about the Dakotas, there was such generosity
among people. But then he looked at John and then
he looked at me and he says, where do you
come from? And we said, well, we live in Bismarck.
And he said, you guys look familiar. Who's your dad?
And he said John Peterson. And this farmer said, I

(17:46):
owe you this because your dad is comptous multiple times
when we come in to get school supplies for our kids.
And so both Dad and Vernon were very generous with
people having a very difficult.

Speaker 4 (18:00):
Time as far as the fifties in the hotel with
the oil guys, I remember a dad would always say
what a wild time that was. I mean there would
be poker games downstairs at that time with two or
three thousand dollars in the pot. And you said there

(18:21):
was a time where these oil guys would be shaking
dice for a Cadillac out there. And one time you
mentioned that in the steakhouse or in the bar, one
of these oil guys flipped over the place, Matt and
did a lease that valued about almost a half a

(18:45):
million dollars and had an oritorize and everything on this
placement right in the GP. And then another time he
reflected on this, one of these oil guys from Williston

(19:06):
paid one hundred and seventy five dollars and took a
taxi from Williston to the Grand Pacific Hotel. That seemed
to be the action spot, because I think it was
the remodel and could have been after that. There was
a fire in fifty four and when he remodeled to

(19:27):
put in a piano bar, and there was a lot
of action there. Not to say that there wasn't anything
going on in the at the Patterson, but it seemed,
you know, like any other bar. The action was at
a certain place, and it was there I.

Speaker 7 (19:42):
Had a chance with Dad. When the book, John and
Dave and I went to town to plan how they wanted
funerals and et cetera, et cetera. And I said, Dad,
I think back on a hotel. What is the most
dangerous thing you had to do? And he said that's
an easy one for me. They said, well, tell me

(20:05):
the story and he said, well, we were all asleep
at home. I got to call at three m in
the morning from the front desk, and the front desk
clerk said, John, you got to go up to room
two five because two guys got into an argument. This
guy's one guy's got a pistol. You got to talk

(20:28):
him down or call the police. So my dad went
down to the hotel, went up to that room, knocked.

Speaker 4 (20:37):
On the door and.

Speaker 7 (20:39):
They said, hey, I know you guys are arguing. This
is John Peterson, owner of the hotel, and I just
want to come in and talk to you guys. And
so he walked in the room and this one guy
literally had the gun pointing at that other guy, and
my dad said, what's up? And he said well, he
just cheated me in a poker game and I wanted

(21:01):
my money back and he's not going to.

Speaker 4 (21:02):
Give it to me.

Speaker 7 (21:04):
And he said, well, why do you think he was cheating?
And he said, well, he was dealing off, dealing off
the bottom of the deck for himself. And my dad asked,
this other guy, is that true and he said yes.

(21:24):
I don't know why I said yes, but he said yes.
And I said, my dad just said, you got to
give him your money back. And he gave the money
back and both guys are one guy parted out of
the room and one with a gun gun and my
dad said to him, he said, I don't want anybody
talking about this story because there are families, farmers and

(21:47):
ranching families in this hotel. We need to keep everybody safe,
including the oil men that are in this I don't
want any say like that to happen. We need to
care for one another and respect to life with one another.
But he said it was a scary moment for him.

Speaker 8 (22:10):
A reminder for our guests that have joined us. You're
listening to a special serving of History Hot Dish on
Radio Access one or two point five FM. I'm Matt
Fern a producer of Prairie Pioneers, and I have joined
the host of History hot Dish Kate Wildera in the
studio here at Dakota Media Access to discuss the Bismarck

(22:30):
Historical Society's video series titled Prairie Pioneers.

Speaker 7 (22:35):
It was during my time I was called the band
bookie at the GP because I started getting local bands
within Bismarck and then I go to bands from Dickinson
or firegro or Mina to come down, etc. And then
some would come from South Dakota and Minnesota. And then
this one time I got a call from Detroit and

(22:57):
this is relating to the Supremes. You have any dates open,
And this had to be back in sixty four because
I was my junior year of high school. And I said, yeah,
I got this one one date and.

Speaker 4 (23:12):
I got you.

Speaker 7 (23:13):
I got your name written down, and I said, we
do have a cover charge such that, you know, if
there's any things that your band leaves, you know, messy,
et cetera, you just need to you know, pay five
bucks or something like that for us to clean it up.

Speaker 4 (23:29):
And I said, you're on.

Speaker 7 (23:30):
I got your hat down, and the guy said, well,
I got to tell you something and I said, well, okay,
what is it. He said, well, this this group is
a bunch of negroes negro women, and I said, well
that's okay. We don't have any in Bizmarck. I mean,
I have no idea about it. They'll be well received.

(23:55):
And so the Supremes did come that night and the
first hour before intermission they the place was packed, probably
one hundred and fifty people in the convention hall, and
then the screens and nobody danced. They were so good.

(24:15):
We just listened to their music. And the manager came
over and said, said, Terry Mark, the kids dance, And
I said, they're so good, they just want to listen.
And he said, at break, you go tell your friends
they better start dancing or we're leading. So guys, I
spread the words everybody. They the first song and everybody

(24:38):
started dancing. So, I mean, it was a fun time.
But all I can say is for three years we
had unless it was during holidays like Christmas and Easter,
we had bands into GP Hotel unless they were conventions there.

Speaker 9 (24:56):
I remember a Democrat convention, State Democratic Convention in which
Ted Kennedy was part of that at the Hall of
four seasons. This was nineteen seventy two, and other notables
Theodore Roosevelt stayed at the GP Hotel back in the day.

(25:20):
I remember nineteen seventy Bob Seger played the Terry mentioned
the dances. But there were also some fan tang regional bands.
The Fabulous Flippers out of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma played played
played the Plaine States mostly they did play some in Minnesota.

(25:44):
They could have made the Beatles blush. I mean, they
were so good and and so oh god. There's there's
other other big artists that just escaped me. But it
was in their early early years that they performed there.

Speaker 4 (26:05):
The GP Hotel was the center of the Republican Organizing
Committee for forty some years, and as far as I know,
the Organizing Committee was started early on, I think by

(26:30):
Milt Young, and their mission was to weed out the
NPL element from the Republican Party, which they thought were
too moderate or a little two left wing for their organization.
So they so they had offices in the hotel for many,

(26:58):
many years. And another organization was the Rotary Club forty
two years in fact, that Ponderosa room, I think is
I think they might have met down there. I can
remember when Nelson Rockefeller was running for president, or he

(27:23):
was vice president at the time, I can't recall, but
Dad was really excited because he offered they were going
to auction off his tie, Rockefeller's tie, and Dad thought

(27:44):
he was going to raise all this money for the
Republican Party at that time. He called them Eisenhower Republicans.
Those are kind of good guys. There are probably moderate
Democrats now. But so they had this auction. He was,
you know, thought, man, he's got fifty bucks and so
they could raise this tie. My dad was so dejected.

(28:08):
It said shea so and so and Bobby Kennedy spoke
at the GP for some Native American conference there, and
another interesting my dad told me, do you remember when
Oral Roberts used to come down and have those He

(28:31):
stayed at the hotel and and Dad said he was
working the desk that night on a couple of occasions,
and they, I think they'd have him down the World
War Memorial Building, I think, and they'd come back and

(28:53):
he said, they'd have a suitcase full of cash, and
so'd come in and you said, they'd slap that down
on the counter and they'd count all the cash and
put it in the safe at night, and then in
the morning it'd be he'd have to come down and

(29:14):
they count the cash again, and I'm sure they reported
all that to the irs. William Howard Taff stayed stayed
at the GP in William Jennings Bryan. But that's that's
all I can remember right now. The hotel was really

(29:44):
on life support at that time anyway, because of Holiday
Inn the interstate up North business had fallen off, things
were getting too expensive to replace it. Just modern times
that just the the time ran out for that for

(30:04):
that hotel. So he was he was very uh, of
course sad because the memories and things, but he was
very pleased that Urban Renewal came in and you know,
that was a godsend for them, really, and because he

(30:27):
was racking his brain to pay pay everything for Gates
City and there was still a lot of bills. So
this this kind of took the pressure off him and
released him. So it was very good for my dad
and everybody else, my uncle John Peterson too. They had

(30:50):
they called it my dad called it the wake, and
it was part of it was held he had uh
at Fort Lincoln, had a big barbecue one night took everybody,
UH sent out invitations and had a big sandbar golf

(31:15):
tournament with these and a lot of these Texas Oil
guys came back from there and UH and then had
a big banquet and I think it was on the
Saturday night, and they just had a wonderful reunion, just

(31:36):
like any other reunion, visiting and things of that nature.

Speaker 6 (31:42):
The sess that my father and my grandfather had were
due to check, truly due to generosby and in long hours.
Both of them worked. If you really want something, and
you've got to really want something to where you can
almost taste it, and success comes from working a structured life,

(32:11):
and my dad and certainly my grandfather provided the structure
necessary to be successful.

Speaker 7 (32:21):
My dad, every morning that I got up, he'd be
in the living room on his knees reading the Bible.
And Mom also said, what you got to do is
you've got to learn how to love God and then
love your neighbor as yourself. And so that's what they did,
and that's the environment in which we grew up. Our

(32:42):
family is very blessed.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
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 (33:05):
Yeah, everyone can. The best place to go is going
to be Bismarkhistory 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 Preye Pioneers, as well as other
programs produced by the Bismarck Historical Society.

Speaker 1 (33:26):
Thank you for listening to History Hot Dish if you
like what you heard. The Bismark 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

(33:47):
dot org and anywhere you find great podcasts. History Hot
Dish is produced by the Bismark Historical Society in partnership
with Dakota Media Access