Eighteen seventy-three was a memorable year in the progress of Dakota Territory.  Spring came unusually early and farmers had started seeding their fields for some weeks before the first of April.

The war department had decided to open a post on the upper Missouri River in the vicinity of where the Northern Pacific Railway reached the east side of the river at what would later become Bismarck.

General George Custer and the 7th Cavalry arrived in Yankton by rail on April 20, 1873.  After disembarking they established a military camp on the flat just northeast of the city. They were preparing for the long journey north where he was to locate and establish an army post in the northern part of Dakota Territory.

At midnight on the 20th, one of the most terrifying springtime storms in the history of the D. T. visited the area.  A most impenetrable blizzard, driven by a fierce wind, created great suffering in the camp.

The storm continued for thirty-six hours without abatement.  But for the heroic efforts of the citizens of Yankton, who carried supplies to them, the results might have been even worse than they were.

The people of Yankton exerted themselves for the comfort of General Custer and his command during the storm and afterwards entertained them royally.  They remained in Yankton for three weeks or more before advancing up the river.  On June 25, 1876 they would lose their lives on the Little Big Horn in Montana.

There was no real politics or other excitement statewide in 1873.  The harvest was abundant and the people generally prospered and were content.

In Yankton and Yankton County; however, there was great dissatisfaction over the conduct of the Dakota Southern Railway Company.  It had failed to establish shops and do other things consistent with the contract it had made with the citizens of Yankton.

It was the citizens of Yankton which had given the railroad a bonus of $200,000 in bonds for extending the tracks to Yankton and further west along the river.  There was open talk that they might refuse to pay the bonds.

In Yankton, beginning about 1870 there had been constantly increasing friction between the two ends of the town known as the Broadway faction on the west side and the Capitol Street faction on the east.  Only four blocks apart, the rivalry between them was intense.

It was contended by the Broadway faction that the contract of the Dakota Southern Railway required that the terminus of that line should be on Broadway, whereas the builders had stopped construction and erected their depot at Capitol Street.  This feeling and disagreement resulted in the calling of a mass meeting to be held in Morrison’s Hall on the corner of Capitol and Third Street on the evening of September 11, 1873.

Almost the entire male population of the capital city was gathered at that time and place.  Among the partisans of the Broadway faction was Peter P. Wintermute (a name which should not be forgotten), a young man and a banker by profession.  General Edwin S. McCook, secretary of the territory, had come to be deemed an adherent of the Capitol Street faction.

When the meeting was called to order McCook was not present, but Wintermute took an active interest in the organization and through his activity secured the election of Governor Newton Edmunds, who resided on Broadway, as chairman of the meeting.  Shortly after the meeting was organized Wintermute stepped out and into the saloon in the basement of the St. Charles to purchase a cigar.

There he met McCook and, finding that he had no change in his pocket, asked McCook for the loan of a coin (0.10).  McCook answered him irritably, refusing the loan, whereupon Wintermute declared he had been insulted and threatened to punish the secretary.

Wintermute weighed about one hundred thirty-five pounds.  McCook was a born fighter and weighed about two hundred pounds.  Some words followed in which Wintermute threatened to shoot the secretary and shook his fist in his face.

McCook, losing control of himself, took hold of Wintermute and threw him to the floor, wiping his head in the filth which had accumulated in front of the bar and even thrust his face into a spittoon.  They separated, but later during a speech at the meeting, Wintermute shot McCook several times.  McCook was struck in the chest but he still had strength to grab Wintermute and nearly put him out a window.

A justice of the peace arrested Wintermute and McCook was carried to his room in a nearby hotel.  He bled to death overnight.  He was 36 years old.

The Wintermute-McCook battle and the killing of the territorial secretary in 1873 was the most violent moment in Dakota Territory politics – all because of ten cents!

 

Author Author Clarence Shoemaker, originally published in the Gregory Times-Advocate on September 4, 2024