Yes, Zap is the name of a real town. In ‘Dem Bon’z we weave actual North Dakota places and history into the fabric of the story. One of the more interesting places is the town of Zap, North Dakota. Zap is a wonderful town with a sordid reputation. In 1969 the infamous “Zip to Zap” occurred in this otherwise quiet small community. This was the brainchild of a North Dakota State University student and seems to have been an attempt at a Woodstock-like event, without the music. As the story goes, roughly 3,000 inveterate party-goers traveled from points all over the map to Zap in early May of that year. For those unfamiliar with North Dakota weather, it’s still pretty cold in May and the sub-freezing temperatures were typical. Not your typical “festival” of the period. The town had two purveyors of liquid refreshment, who did a booming business and would have done so even if they hadn’t gouged the prices of alcohol. As the Zippers or Zappers, as the case may be, emptied the storerooms of the bars things began to take a nasty turn. When the mayor demanded the students leave, a riot broke out creating significant damage to the local businesses. The Governor ordered the North Dakota Army National Guard to restore order. Roughly five hundred guardsmen with bayonets fixed cleared the streets. According to local legend this was North Dakota’s only recorded riot, but I’ve been to some of those hockey games at the University of North Dakota. We might need to rethink that legend.
TDB
TDB
RSS Feed
