Good Ol' Ollie Bergstrom

Gustavus never saw the grasses of Dawson wave

He never imagined all that energy wasted on a rain dance

His city was built to protect the sea traders

The ships of Keiller never knew the plains

The children lay beneath rusting wrought iron crosses

Their parents friends with an agent for the U.P.

Who came in advance to build sod houses for workers

Easy terms no down payment finance

Get them from Sweden with promises of freedom 

Promise them 160 and a plow

The railroad needed labor

And everyone needed a second chance

Make a fence of barbed wire, make a sculpture too

Robert Henri had to change how he signed his work

When his father shot Pearson in the pasture

But underneath the paint he was a Cozad

All of those Swedes

Settling along the 100th meridian

Left the Baltic coast behind
No longer beholden to the arms of Gastrikland