MANDAN Historical Society

Working to Preserve & Promote Mandan's Heritage since 2004

Welcome

Membership

Activities

Ag Stn Centennial

History Harvest

TR-Coe Exhibit

WWII Exhibit

Museum & Office

Area History

Book: "Mantani"

The 1880s

Mandan Rodeo / Fair

School System History

The 1890s

The 1900s

1901 Pan Am Expo

1903 TR Visit to NDak

The 1910s

1910 Spring Flood

1911 Fair & Airplane Demo

1912 TR Whistle-Stop

The 1920s

Prohibition in Mandan

Mail Order Kit Homes

The 1930s

FDR Visit August 1936

The 1940s

The 1950s

1958 Lincoln Stamp FDC

Custer Drama / Trail West

The 1960s

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

1st of the 21st

2010-Present

Area Landmarks

Cary Bldg - Mandan Drug

CCC Camp Chimney

Christ the King Church

Collins Av Civic Bldg

First Lutheran Church

First National Bank Bldg

First Presbyterian Church

Great Plains Academy

Great Plains Expermt Stn

Lewis & Clark Hotel

Mandan Hill

Mandan Theatre

MV Produce Warehouse

Methodist Church

NP Beanery

NP "Colonial" RR Depot

NPRR Freighthouse

NP Rail High Bridge

Roughrider Statue

St Joseph Church

WWar Memorial Bldg

Youth Correctional Center

Gone Forever

Central School

Collins Ave Courthouse

Cummins Building

Deaconess Hospital

Eielson Field

Emerson Inst/Opera House

First St Federal Building

Havana Club

Hotel Nigey

InterOcean Hotel

Liberty Memorial Bridge

Mandan Creamery & Produce

Mandan Flour Mill

Merchants Hotel

NP "Queen Anne" Depot

Original Passenger Depot

Palace Theatre

Peoples' Hotel

Rock Haven

Topic Theatre

Young's Tavern

Heritage Homes

Altnow-Smith Home

Dunlap-Harris Home

Ellis-Uden Home

Freeburg-Esser Home

Lyon-Weigel Home

McGillic Home

Olson-Brick Home

Parkins-Cooley Home

Stutsman-Wyatt Home

Swanson-Reichman Home

Welch-Ness Home

Endowment Fund

Genealogy Links

Biographies A-C

J D Allen

Franklin Anders

Richard Baron

James Bellows

George Bingenheimer

Margaret Bingenheimer

Philip Blumenthal

Elijah Boley

Frank Briggs

Leo Broderick

William Broderick

Frank Bunting

Lyman Cary

James Clark

Henry Coe

Viola Boley Coe

Daniel Collins

Elizabeth Custer

George Custer

Biographies D-L

Alice Dahners

Henry Dahners

C E V (Charles) Draper

Esther Davis

Tony Dean

Joseph Devine

Ronald Erhardt

John Forbes

Palma Fristad

Gilbert Furness

Aloysius Galowitsch

Frederic Gerard

Zalmon Gilbert

Charles Grantier

James Hanley Jr

James Hanley Sr

Mary Harris

C Edgar Haupt

Michael Lang

William Langer

Albert Lanterman

William Lanterman

Richard Longfellow

Rolland Lutz

Hiram Lyon

Biographies M-R

George Marback

Gary Miller

Lee Mohr

Margaret Naylor

John Newton

Anton Ness

John Osterhouse

George Peoples

Arthur Peterson

Nels Romer

Hoy Russell

Walton Russell

Antonie Rybnicek

Ervin Rybnicek

Hynek Rybnicek

Biographies S-Z

Margaret Schaaf

George Shafer

Benjamin Shaw

William Simpson

Anna Knox Stark

Mary Stark

Benjamin Stephenson

J O Sullivan

John Sullivan

Era Bell Thompson

Andrew E Thorberg

Ida Thorberg

C L Timmerman

George Toman

Earle Tostevin

Edwin A Tostevin Sr

Edwin D Tostevin Jr

Walter Tostevin

Felix Vinatieri

A B Welch

Levon West

Frank Wetzstein

Harry Wheeler

Philomena Yunck

View Collections

Artifacts - Miscellanous

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Pottery and Glass

Photos - Buildings

Photos - Downtown

Photos - Floods

Photos - People

Photos - Rail and Trains

What's New

Mandan Hill - 501 N Mandan Ave
East Mandan Hill as it appears from the air in Summer 2008 including KNDR radio tower and equipment shed.
Mandan Hill, or frequently referred to as "Crying Hill", has welcomed visitors and returning residents with its notation for over 50 years.  The landmark is comprised of three separate features; (1) concrete letters denoting the city's name on the northeast face of the hill; (2) the word "Mandan" spelled out in trees on the south face of the hill; and (3) the hill itself, a sacred place culturally important to several Native American tribes.

MaNDan Letters

In the 1930s, small towns across the state and probably across the country adopted the practice of recording its name on a nearby hillside.  Similar efforts were undertaken by other North Dakota towns including Center, New Salem and Bowman whose signs also remain intact today.  In the days before GPS coordinates and radio navigation aids, the forerunner to the ND State Aeronautical Commission encouraged rural areas to denote their community's name on watertowers and hillsides to assist airplane pilots in identifying their location during cross-country flights. Another version of the truth attributes the practice to plain civic pride.

Culminating two years of intermittent work and spearheaded by Mandan Pioneer newspaperman Edwin D. Tostevin.   The sign was suggested by Tostevin in 1932 during a meeting of the Mandan Lions Club. The Mandan Boy Scouts completed a 300 foot long by 70 foot high sign on the south side of Mandan's Crying Hill in June 1934. Mandan's layout features the two middle characters as upper case letters 85 feet high to represent the state's of North Dakota's official abbreviation.

The project involved forty-seven truckloads of rock which area business sponsors had delivered to the base of the hill. The stones were collected from fields around the city.  The Boy Scouts applied more than 12 gallons of white paint to the stones to brighten the letters before hauling and placing the rocks. The local Boy and Girls Scouts maintained the sign for more than 30 years.
 
In August 1963, eight gallons of paint and 12-hours of effort by the Mandan Jaycees members went into rehabbing the sign.  A second line consisting of white painted railroad timbers was added to promote the Custer Drama at Fort Lincoln State Park.

Note the TRAILWEST addition to Mandan Hill
Click to Enlarge
In June 1959, work was again completed on refurbishing and replacing stones and repainting the sign. Railroad ties were added to the display which denoted "Trail West" to promote the new Custer-based drama debuting at Fort Lincoln State Park in July 1959. The project was sponsored by the Mandan Jaycees with member Larry Sullivan serving as project chairman.
With the construction of Interstate 94 on the north side of the hill in 1968, the original white-colored sign was transferred from the hill's southern side to the east side in 1987 to be viewed by approaching traffic.  Instead of using stones, large concrete rectangles were constructed.  This designed was expected to discourage vandals from removing stones and/or destroying the letters.

The marker is credited currently as being the largest sign in North Dakota.

Trees were planted in the late 1990s across the original location of the sign, i.e. the southern face of the hill, also spelling out "MANDAN."

Crying Hill

The first European explorers, sons of the famous French explorer Pierre Verendrye, were reportedly greeted in 1738 by Mandan indian chief Good Fur Blanket just below the south side of the hill.  However the greater significance stems from its importance to multiple Native American Indian tribes. The Mandan, Hidatsa, Lakota, Sioux, and Arikara tribes all attribute sacred events and rituals of taking place there.

Click to Enlarge for Route Map
As the highest place in the area, Crying Hill was frequently sought out as a place for prayer and solace; possibly asking for a healthy baby by pregnant women; or a attempting a “vision quest” seeking guidance from a departed loved-one.  The area was also used by Native Americans from the region to mourn their dead.

Whether its importance is of cultural significance, or evokes fond childhood memories sledding down its slippery snowing slopes, the place is a true historic landmark.

The MHSoc's museum and office is located at 3827 30th Avenue NW; PO Box 1001; Mandan, ND 58554
Contact us at info@mandanhistory.org


Last Updated 03/28
/23    ©  2007-2023  Mandan Historical Society   All rights reserved