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Collection Summary
Collection: 00032 - North Dakota Oral History Project Photograph Collection
Folder: MZ-20
Item: 00013
Title: Jay Newman Grantier
Date: 1950
Creator: Christensen, Ralph,--1911-1982
Inscription/Marks: [facsimile file] Written on back of photograph: Picture is of Jay Grantier. [same photograph as used in Watford City Golden Jubilee Watford City, North Dakota 50 Years of Progress 1914-1964]
Summary: Head and shoulders outdoor portrait of Jay Grantier in jacket, sweater and workshirt with newsboy hat. [same photograph as used in Watford City Golden Jubilee Watford City, North Dakota 50 Years of Progress 1914-1964] [biography-Watford City Golden Jubilee Watford City, North Dakota 50 Years of Progress 1914-1964] Jay Grantier, and his family first arrived in Dickinson in 1881. Born in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, on January 6, 1870, he and his father first settled on a small ranch at Killdeer Mountain in 1885. He rode as a cowboy with large herds of cattle the full length of the trail from texas to the Dakotas. In 1887, Grantier joined the Reynolds Brothers Long X outfit. At 18 years of age he was sent alone as a horse wrangler from the summer camp of the Long X outfit, some 15 miles southwest of Watford City, to Texas with about forty head of horses where the Long X wintered their cattle. Grantier first operated in McKenzie County at the site known as the Uhlman Ranch northwest of Watford City, before settling permanently at the mouth of the Tobacco Garden Creek, 20 miles north of Watford City. He filed and proved up on a homestead. Sophie Gamache and Jay Grantier were married in 1897. Her family's history had been as exciting as that of her husband's. Born in Bismarck in 1875, where her father David Gamache, owned a dairy at Fort Lincoln, and had previously operated a freight line between Sioux City and Fort Benton, Montana before the railroad went in. The Gamache's settled in Williams County on a place along the north bank of the Missouri, south of the town of Wheelock. Sophie Grantier died in Williston, March 22, 1927. Jay and Sophie Grantier had six sons: Stephen D., Billings, Mont.; Lewis D., died in 1943; Clinton D., Wolf Point, Mont.; Lawrence J. (Buck) operates the home ranch north of Watford City; Charles G., Mandan, N. Dak. and Edward A., Minot, N. Dak. Mr. Grantier's second marriage in 1928 was to Clara Roesner, now Mrs. Langdon, who lives in Dickinson. Jay and Clara Grantier had three children: Jay Jr. died in infancy; Erna Claire (Mrs. John Trubee) lives in Princeton, New Jersey; and Allen J. (Bud) lives in Denver, Colo. Jay Grantier died on June 11, 1939, doing the work he loved—working with horses. He was an avid reader in spite of very little formal education, and many recall him standing beside the kerosene lamp, and reading an entire book in an evening before thinking of retiring. His teams of horses had such poetic and literary names as "Lemuel and Theophrastus" or "Felicia and Froney". He even had visions back in 1939 of this being a great oil country and how right he was!
Red ID: PH_I_121610 Image ID: 184070 Image Notes: 00032-MZ-20-00013

Collection: 00032 Digitized Images from Collection
Title: North Dakota Oral History Project Photograph Collection
Date: 1880-1977

Summary: Consists of copies of photographs belonging to people interviewed for the North Dakota Oral History Project. The Project was undertaken by Larry Sprunk, with the cooperation of the North Dakota American Revolution Bicentennial Commission, the North Dakota Farmers Union, and the State Historical Society of North Dakota. The primary objective of the North Dakota Oral History Project was to conduct oral tape recorded interviews with North Dakotans who lived through the state's history and who could speak of this history from a first-hand basis. Interviewees were photographed at the time of their interviews. In addition, the project borrowed over 6,000 historical photographs which were copied and added to the State Historical Society's collection. Many interviewees also donated family histories, documents, letters, ledgers, books, and artifacts.

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