Chip Cartwright

Our immediate supervisor at Cross Ranch is Chip Cartwright, age 61, who is a seasonal employee of North Dakota Parks with five years of service. For two years before that, he was a guide at Ft. Mandan along the Missouri River. He also is a 30-year retiree of the U.S. Forest Service where he held a number of interesting positions. In his fifth wheel, Chip has been spending summer months in North Dakota and wintering on South Padre Island TX.

A graduate of Virginia Tech in Forestry & Wildlife Management, Chip partially paid his way through college by singing. Today the urge to perform is still alive and Chip has developed three historic characters as a reenactor which he performs at weekend events around North Dakota. He belongs to various organizations here who entertain and educate people on what North Dakota used to be like.

One character is “Troy,” the slave whom William Clark brought along as part of the Corps of Discovery. Native Americans were fascinated by Troy because they had never seen a person with such dark skin. Troy was also over six feet in height with an impressive muscular build. Returning from war skirmishes, the Mandans, for example, used to smear their skin, as well as their horses, with the black ashes from a fire pit as a sign of victory. The darker the better. Troy’s blackness was regarded as powerful medicine.

Another character is “Cookie,” an African-American cowboy who became a chuck-wagon cook in his older years. The third character is a Buffalo Soldier of whom there were many in the late 19th century during the Indian campaigns. For research on each of these characters, Chip has spent hours at the North Dakota Historical Society going over old books and other documents.

“One of the astonishing things I discovered,” Chip said, “is the first recorded death in North Dakota was that of a person of African-American descent.”

In college, Chip was an Air ROTC officer, just like I was. But, unlike me, he served his military obligation as an officer in the USAF. I chose to be army strong as a grunt.

We both have have an interest in history, particularly Civil War history, and from time to time spent enjoyable time discussing a battle here or a general there. The Civil War can be touchy territory, like politics and religion, but our talks have been totally objective and devoid of disagreement. Chip is very knowledgeable on a wide variety of topics.

Chip was married for 22 years and is a devoted father of a boy and a girl. His son, Michael, age 28, is a music graduate from USC and plays music gigs around Los Angeles. Son’s dream is to go 100% professional. His daughter, Shannon, is married, has two children and lives with her husband and family in Ft. Riley KA.

To say Lois and I got along well with Chip would be a huge understatement. We believe we have found a new friend and we hope to see much more of him and to enjoy his company long after we have departed from Cross Ranch State Park.