D.J. Tinnes Papers

"Senator Tinnes, 71, Dies Unexpectedly in Local Hospital Succumbs After Week's Illness; Was Serving 1st Term in Legislature State Senator Dana J. Tinnes, 71 years old, 620 Seventh Avenue South, died unexpectedly in a Grand Forks hospital at 10:31 P.M. Monday, after a week's illness. Senator Tinnes, who was serving his first term in the North Dakota legislature, has been believed on the road to recovery until his condition took a change for the worse late Monday. Nationally recognized as an economist, he was author of the Tinnes plan for the stabilization of the dollar embodied in the Burtness Fair Dollar Bill introduced in Congress. He was born at Arena, Wis., October 4, 1861. In April 1873, he moved with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. S.D. Tinnes to a farm near Adrian, Nobles County, Minnesota. His father was one of the early settlers of Nobles County. When 17 years old, he taught school for a year and then entered railroad service as a telegrapher at Bigelow, Minnesota.  In 1888, Mr. Tinnes started a general store at Rushmore, Minn., and later was in the store business at Adrian, Minn. While there, he edited the newspaper, the Adrian Guardian. He was married to Miss Eva G. Childs at Adrian, March 31, 1895. He first came to North Dakota in 1905 as railway agent at Lidgerwood. In 1906, he was made station agent at Northwood and in 1909 organized the Farmers Store at that place. In 1912, he bought the general store at Hunter and later purchased a store at Grandin, operating the two of them for several years. Senator Tinnes moved to Grand Forks in the fall of 1920. He was secretary of the state 'Bull Moose' party committee during the Theodore Roosevelt presidential campaign of 1912 and lived at Fargo that year. He was elected to the state senate in the general election in the Fall of 1932 and served during the 1933 Winter term of the legislature. The senator was a member of the American economic society and was offered membership in the Royal Economic Society of Great Britain, because of an article he wrote for the American Economic Review. He had served as a lecturer on monetary economics at the University of North Dakota for several years. He was a member of the Masonic and A.O.U.W. lodges. In addition to his wife, he is survived by three sons, Lloyd, Vernon, and Herbert Tinnes, all of Grand Forks; two brothers, George E. and John F. Tinnes of Adrian, and two sisters, Mrs. Mary Childs of Brooks, Minn., and Mrs. John F. Spatz of Yakima, Wash." Source: Grand Forks Herald

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