MANDAN Historical Society

Working to Preserve & Promote Mandan's Heritage since 2004

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The 1880s

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1958 Lincoln Stamp FDC

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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

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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

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Liberty Memorial Bridge

Mandan Creamery & Produce

Mandan Flour Mill

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NP "Queen Anne" Depot

Original Passenger Depot

Palace Theatre

Peoples' Hotel

Rock Haven

Topic Theatre

Young's Tavern

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Altnow-Smith Home

Dunlap-Harris Home

Ellis-Uden Home

Freeburg-Esser Home

Lyon-Weigel Home

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Parkins-Cooley Home

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J D Allen

Franklin Anders

Richard Baron

James Bellows

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Margaret Bingenheimer

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William Broderick

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Lyman Cary

James Clark

Henry Coe

Viola Boley Coe

Daniel Collins

Elizabeth Custer

George Custer

Biographies D-L

Alice Dahners

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C E V (Charles) Draper

Esther Davis

Tony Dean

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Ronald Erhardt

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Palma Fristad

Gilbert Furness

Aloysius Galowitsch

Frederic Gerard

Zalmon Gilbert

Charles Grantier

James Hanley Jr

James Hanley Sr

Mary Harris

C Edgar Haupt

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William Lanterman

Richard Longfellow

Rolland Lutz

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George Marback

Gary Miller

Lee Mohr

Margaret Naylor

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Arthur Peterson

Nels Romer

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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

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Edwin Albert Tostevin Sr (1864-1943)

Edwin Albert Tostevin was born in Racine, Wisconsin on September 22, 1864.  He graduated from high school and had two years of business college education which was unusual for the times.

Edwin worked first as a farm machinery salesman for his father’s fanning mill plant.  In that capacity he had an early opportunity to visit Dakota Territory and see first-hand the life of a pioneer farmer.  When area farms fell on hard times, he accepted employment with the Racine Journal Publishing Company in 1887 at the age of 22 and worked his way up the ranks and eventually into the business office of the newspaper and peaking at the post of corporate Secretary.  But Edwin Sr. realized if he was ever to be manager/editor, he would have to find his own newspaper.


In 1909, he traveled to North Dakota and purchased the Mandan Pioneer, a weekly newspaper, from W. Harry Spears.  (The Pioneer Publishing Company was incorporated in 1883, with the Marquis de Mores, Michael Lang, Joseph Miller, R.M. Tuttle, A.C. Macrorie and George Bingenheimer as stockholders).

In the first issue of the Pioneer under EA's management, he offered the following introduction: "In assuming control of the Pioneer, the writer wishes to assure the people of Mandan and the people of Morton County that the policy of the paper will not be changed, that it will be found loyal to those Republican doctrines and principles under which the nation has prospered. To issue a bright, clean, newsy paper one that will deserve the loyal support of the people of this section, will be the ambition of the writer."

The paper continued as a weekly until April of 1914 when it became a daily paper.  Lively, local political campaigns for state and county offices and the outbreak of WWI ensured the necessity for a daily paper and the circulation almost doubled in a short time.  The Mandan Daily Pioneer was an influential paper serving the Western Slope area.

He had married Florence Gertrude Clemmons in Racine on May 31, 1888.  The couple had three sons, Earl Herbert, Walter Clemmons, and Edwin Dodge.
All three sons would join their father in the newspaper business.  While Earle and Walter served their country in the Army, their youngest brother Edwin Dodge was assigned an even greater role at the paper.

EA was a firm believer of the potential of this area of the state.  He was very active in local civic affairs, including the Mandan Rotary Club as well as politics and worked to make Mandan a better place to live and conduct business.
Mandan Rotary Club

Sitting: William Cummins, Harold Lawrence, Henry Dahners, Charles Wright, C. C. Smith, Del Scothorn, E. A. Tostevin, John Sakariassen, Ralph Newcomer, Lloyd Erickson, Joe Hess, William Furness, James Hanley, Charles Conyne, R. R. Lutz
Kneeling: Harvey Williams, William Vallancey, Ray Griffin, John Gould, Gilbert Stewart, George Spielman, Bernard Nickerson, Roy Countryman
Standing: D. C. Mohr, Chas Cooley, Charles Ellis, Sr., Emanual Saltzman, Otto Bauer, Cleve Kennelly, Hoy Russell, William McCelland, Sr., Henry Newton, John Bowers, John Kennelly, Henry Schulte, Harold Jensen, Lloyd Thompson, Edwin Ripley, Al Craychee, unknown, Robert Rhea and Walter Tostevin

Edwin loved music, started playing the pipe organ as a child and was performing regularly by age 17 at his church.  From 1912 to 1936, he was the regular organist at Mandan's First Presbyterian Church.

Florence Tostevin died in 1937.  Edwin married Miss Elma Spenser in 1938 in Racine.  Elma Spenser died in 1950.

Edwin A. Tostevin died on February 15, 1943.  He and his wife Florence are buried in Union Cemetery in Mandan, ND. 

The Tostevin family would remain in the newspaper business until they sold the Mandan Pioneer in 1963.

The Society would like to thank members James and Patricia Tostevin for sharing this information with us.

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
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