North Dakota

HISTORY

The indigenous American peoples lived in what is now North Dakota for thousands of years before the coming of Europeans. Their tribes included the Mandan people, the Dakota people and the Yanktonai.

The first European to reach what is now North Dakota was the French-Canadian trader Pierre Gaultier, Sieur de La Vérendrye, who led an exploration party to Mandan villages in 1738.

Dakota Territory was settled sparsely by European Americans until the late 19th century, when the railroads were constructed into the region.

About 38 percent of North Dakota's immigrants were Scandinavians. Of that group, about 85 percent were Norwegian.

Norwegian settlers in front of their sod house in North Dakota in 1898

The Dakota Territory, an organized incorporated territory of the United States, was split and admitted to the Union as the states of North and South Dakota on November 2, 1889.

On January 3, 1933, Minnie D. Craig was elected as Speaker of the North Dakota House of Representatives, the first female to hold a Speaker position anywhere in the United States.  However, North Dakota was suffering from an agricultural depression caused by drought and the session proved challenging for Craig. Her tenure as an elected member of the legislature ended in 1935 when she left to become a state worker for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration.

The KVLY-TV mast (formerly the KTHI-TV mast) is a 2,063 ft (628.8 m) tall television-transmitting mast in Blanchard, Traill County, North Dakota used by Fargo station KVLY-TV channel 11. Completed in 1963, it was the tallest structure in the world until succeeded by the Warsaw radio mast in 1974; that mast collapsed in 1991, making the KVLY-TV mast again the tallest structure in the world until the Burj Khalifa in Dubai overtook it in 2010.

North Dakota didn't technically qualify for statehood until 2012 when a constitutional error found by a 66-year-old man was corrected.

FUN FACTS

At an election in the North Dakota town of Pillsbury in 2008, nobody turned out to vote.

The number 1 beer drinking state in the US in 2012 was North Dakota, with 45.8 gallons per year per adult.

As of 2015, there was about 756,927 people living in North Dakota.

Most of the economy is based on agriculture. North Dakota has 39 million acres of farm and ranchland.

The most important agricultural crop is durum, a type of wheat, which is grown all across the state.

The state's cows turn out one billion glasses of milk a year.

It's illegial to serve beer and pretzels at the same time in North Dakota.

North Dakota is the least visited state in America, owing, in part, to its not having a major tourist attraction. Also geographically, it's isolated from a lot of the country.

Theodore Roosevelt had a ranch in the North Dakota Badlands which he used as his hunting base. The president's dedication to conservation is remembered by a national park there that bears his name. Elkorn Ranch, North Dakota, is now part of the Theodore Roosevelt memorial park, which is home to a variety of plants and animals, including bison, prairie dogs, and elk. The park often exceeds 475,000 visitors each year, making it arguably the most popular tourist attraction in the state.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota

North Dakota has 63 national wildlife refuges more than any other state.

The Geese in Flight sculpture, erected in 2001, stands along the “Enchanted Highway” between Regent and Gladstone. Weighing 78.8 tons, the artwork is 110' tall by 154' wide and is the world's largest scrap metal sculpture.

North Dakota has the only bank in the United States that is owned by the state. The Bank of North Dakota is where all of the money from all government agencies is held.

North Dakota has the most churches per capita of any state.

Vang Evangelical Lutheran Church in Manfred. By Andrew Filer - Flickr: Wikipedia

North Dakota is not close to any oceans or seas. Because of this, the state has a continental climate with hot summers and cold winters.

The state's all-time low temperature was -60 degrees below zero at Parshall in northwestern North Dakota on February 15, 1936.

According to a 2016 survey, North Dakota is the U.S. state with the least Millennials still living at home.

Source Inforum.com