North Dakota State Project

Jayden Kubischta

Mrs. Rooke’s 4^th Grade Class

April 2004

Table of Contents

I. Capitol of North Dakota

II. Government

III. Population

IV. Products, Natural Resources and Industries

V. North Dakota Statehood

VI. State Facts

VII. Points of Interest

VIII. Rivers, Bodies of Water and Landforms

IX. Climate

X. North Dakota Historical Facts

XI. Wildlife and Plants

Capitol of North Dakota

Part I

This shows where Bismarck is.

Here is a picture of the capital of North Dakota . It is 19 stories high.

Government

Part II

This is the former Governors mansion. It is on Avenue B.

First Governor John Miller Lived Here

Here is the new Governors mansion.

Our Governor John Hoeven lives here now.

My great-great Grandfather Anton Kubischta served in the North Dakota State Legislature in the 1930’s (the great depression)

North Dakota Representative and Senators.

Congressman Earl Pomeroy	Senator Byron Dorgan	Senator Kent Conrad

Population

Part III

This is how many people lived in North Dakota through out the years.

This is a pie graph of the different kinds of people in North Dakota.

This is a bar graph of the county population.

Products, Natural Resources and Industries

Part IV

North Dakota Lignite Coal

North Dakota Statehood

Part V

On March 2, 1861, President James Buchanan signed the bill creating the Dakota Territory, which originally included the area covered today by both Dakotas as well as Montana and Wyoming. The name was taken from that of the Dakota or Sioux Indian Tribe. Beginning about 1877, efforts were made to bring Dakota into the Union as both a single state and as two states. The latter was successful and on November 2, 1889, both North and South Dakota were admitted. Since President Benjamin Harrison went to great lengths to obscure the order in which the statehood proclamations were signed, the exact order in which the two states entered is unknown. However, because of alphabetical position, North Dakota is often considered the 39th state.
Dakota is the Sioux Indian word for "friend".

State Facts

Part VI

State flag

State Motto:

Liberty and Union Now and Forever, One and Inseparable

The motto of Dakota Territory was Liberty and Union, One and Inseparable, Now and Forever. This language was suggested by Dr. Joseph Ward of Yankton, South Dakota, who was quoting from Daniel Webster's Reply to Hayne. However, the motto used for the Territory had two of the phrases reversed; when North Dakota became a state that error was corrected.

State Nicknames

• Peace Garden State - The International Peace Garden straddles the international Boundary between North Dakota and the Canadian province of Manitoba. In 1956 the North Dakota Motor Vehicle Department, on its own initiative, placed the words Peace Garden State on license plates; the name proved so popular that it was formally adopted by the 1957 legislature (North Dakota Century Code (NDCC), Section 39-04-12).
• Flickertail State - Flickertail refers to the Richardson ground squirrels which are abundant in North Dakota. The animal flicks or jerks its tail in a characteristic manner while running or just before entering its burrow. In 1953 the Legislative Assembly defeated Senate Bill (S.B.) No. 134 that would have adopted the Flickertail facsimile as the official emblem of the state.
• Roughrider State - This name originated in a state-supported tourism promotion of the 1960s and 70s. It refers to the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry which Theodore Roosevelt organized to fight in the Spanish-American War. In fact, the "Roughriders," which included several North Dakota cowboys, fought dismounted in Cuba due to logistical problems. In both 1971 (House Bill No. {H.B. No.} 1383) and 1973 (G.B. No. 1443) the Legislative Assembly defeated bills intended to change the words Peace Garden State on state license plates to Roughrider Country.
• Dakota - An attempt to drop the word North from the state name was defeated by the 1947 Legislative Assembly (House Concurrent Resolution {H.C.R.} J). Again in 1989, the Legislature rejected two resolutions (Senate Concurrent Resolutions Nos. {S.C.R. No.} 4031 and 4032) intended to rename the state Dakota.

State bird: Western Meadowlark

State Flower: Rosa Blanda or Arkansasa

State Tree: American Elm

State Fossil: Teredo Petrified Wood

State Fish: Northern Pike

State Grass: Western Wheatgrass

Points of Interest

Part VII

International Peace G arden

Teddy Roosevelt National Park

Medora

Fort Lincoln

Rivers, Bodies of Water and Landforms

Part VIII

Missouri River

Lake Sakakawea

Devils Lake

North Dakota Badlands

Climate

Part IX

North Dakota Historical Facts

Part X

Summary of North Dakota History

Text from the North Dakota Centennial Blue Book 1889-1989.

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Before Euro-American Settlement of the Northern Plains began in the 19^th Century, the land had been occupied for many centuries. Archeological investigations document the presence of big game hunting cultures after the retreat of the continental glaciers about 10,000 years ago and later settlements of both hunting and gathering and farming peoples dating ca. 2000B.C., to 1860. When the first white explorers arrived, distinct Indian groups existed in what is now North Dakota. These included the Dakota or Lakota nation, Assiniboine, Cheyenne, Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara. Groups of Chippewa moved into the northern Red River Valley around 1800, and Cree, Blackfeet and Crow frequented the western buffalo ranges. (Picture: Catlin 1832)

These peoples represented two different adaptations to the plains environment. Nomadic groups depended primarily upon vast herds of American bison for the necessities of life. When the horse was brought to the Northern Plains in the 18^th Century, the lives of the Dakota, Assiniboine and Cheyenne changed dramatically. These bands quickly adapted the horse, and the new mobility enabled them to hunt with ease and consequently to live better than ever before. The horse became a hallmark of Plains cultures, and the images of these mounted Indians bequeathed a romantic image of power and strength that has survived in story, films and songs. (Picture: Catlin 1832)

In contrast, the sedentary Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara lived in relatively permanent earthlodges near the Missouri River and supplemented produce from extensive gardens with hunting; their fortified villages became commercial centers that evolved into trading hubs during the fur trade of the 18th and 19th centuries. Indians and Euro-Americans came into contact during the 18th Century. The first recorded visitor was La Verendrye, a French explorer who reached the Missouri River from Canada in 1738 while searching for a water route to the Pacific Ocean. Others followed, including La Verendrye's sons in 1742. (Picture: Catlin 1833)

William Clark (left) and Meriwether Lewis (right).

Most contact resulted from the Canadian fur trade until Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led the American "voyage of discovery" up the Missouri from St. Louis, Missouri in 1804.

The fur trade linked the Northern Plains to a worldwide economic and political system. European nations, competing for mercantile supremacy, claimed the plains, and Great Britain, France and Spain exchanged the territory several times through wars and treaties. in 1763, the Treaty of Paris gave all French lands drained by Hudson's Bay to Great Britain, including the country tributary to the Red River of the North. France had ceded lands drained by the Missouri and Mississippi rivers to Spain on year earlier; this territory was returned to France in 1800. Three years later Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte sold French possessions to the fledgling United States. The sale, known as the Louisiana Purchase, inaugurated American ownership of lands now included in North Dakota.

With several notable exceptions, contact between the Native peoples and American traders, explorers and military personnel in the Northern Plains remained peaceful during the early 19th Century. Indians became instrumental in the fur trade; major trading posts at Fort Union and Fort Clark, and others of lesser significance, catered mainly to Native trappers and hunters. In exchange for their meat and furs, the Indians received guns, metal tools, cloth and beads and other trade goods. This exchange forever altered Indian cultures and it often brought dangers; in 1837, for example, smallpox virtually wiped out the Mandan people at Fort Clark.

For the most part, the incursion of Euro-Americans into the Northern Plains caused few confrontations with Indian peoples. In 1863, 1864 and 1865, however, the pattern changed. Major military expeditions searched the Northern Plains for Santee Dakota who had participated in a violent uprising in Minnesota in 1862. Battles at Whitestone Hill in 1863 and at Killdeer Mountain and in the Badlands in 1864 diminished Dakota resistance, forcing many onto reservations to avoid starvation. A chain of military outposts, beginning with For Abercrombi in 1857, continually increased federal power, and great slaughter of the northern bison herds after 1870 eventually caused the nomadic tribes to submit. Some bands of Dakota resisted into the 1880s, but their old way of life on the plains was lost.

Several parts of the struggle between opposing cultures yet remain sources of legend and controversy. In 1876, units of the 7th Cavalry commanded by Lt. Col. George A. Custer left Fort Abraham Lincoln near Bismarck, North Dakota to search for Dakota who had refused confinement on reservations. The resulting annihilation of Custer's immediate command at the Little Big Horn River in Montana Territory made names such as Crazy Horse, Gall and Sitting Bull familiar throughout the nation. Many Dakota moved to Canada to escape relentless punitive expeditions sent by the army. The remnants finally surrendered at Fort Buford in 1881.

American settlement of the Northern Plains commenced in earnest after 1861, when Dakota Territory was organized by the United States Congress. Significant immigration commenced when the westbound Northern Pacific Railway built to the Missouri River in 1872 and 1873. Along and near its line, new towns sprang up to serve the settlers, the tracklaying crews, and other, sometimes rowdy frontier citizens. Fargo and Bismarck, for example, both began as rough-and-tumble railroad communities, Spurred by the Federal Homestead Law of 1862, farming settlement developed gradually after the first claim west of the Red River was filed in 1868.

A great settlement "boom" in northern Dakota occurred between 1879 and 1886. During those years, over 100,000 people entered the territory. The majority were homesteaders, but some organized large, highly mechanized, well capitalized "bonanza" farms. These operations, several of which lasted into the 20th Century, made names such as Dalrymple and Grandin well-known throughout the United States and helped publicize the northern frontier.

Ethnic variety characterized the new settlements. Following the first settlement "boom," a second "boom" after 1905 increased the population form 190,983 to 646,872 by 1920. Many were immigrants of Scandinavian or Germanic origin. Norwegians were the largest single ethnic group, and after1885 many Germans immigrated from enclaves in the Russian Ukraine. A small, but strong community of Scotch-Irish-English background played an especially influential role, contributing many of North Dakota's early business and political leaders. Many other groups, including Asians, African Americans and Arabs, settled throughout North Dakota. So significant was this foreign immigration that in 1915 over 79 percent of all North Dakotans were either immigrant or the children of immigrants.

On November 2, 1889, President Benjamin Harrison approved the admission of North Dakota to the United States. The new state was a Republican Party stronghold. The first governor, John Miller, presided over a turbulent initial legislative session that, among other issues, fought about the question of legalizing lotteries and prohibition.

For North Dakota the 1920s and 1930s proved to be watersheds. An economic depression, starting with the 1920 collapse of wartime prices for grain, punctured the economic expansion of previous decades. More North Dakota banks closed in 1921 than in any other year; the resulting contraction of credit caused many farm foreclosures. Simultaneously, farm sizes increased, and many farmers mechanized their operations. A dramatic shift to motorized transportation placed greater emphasis on better roads and bridges. As the times changed, new devices entered the state's homes; radio, especially became commonplace after the first stations went on the air in North Dakota in 1922. Likewise, motion pictures attracted thousands, and many theaters were built in towns across North Dakota. These economic and social factors had by 1930 made North Dakota a different place than a decade earlier.

The fire that destroyed the old state capitol building on December 28, 1930, symbolized the end of an era.

Despite economic problems, crop failures, dust storms and weather extremes, North Dakota visibly modernized during the 1930s.

The new skyscraper State Capitol, begun 1932, was completed in 1935. Federal relief programs improved highways, state parks and city services throughout the state. State departments addressed public health and safety problems, and a movement for consolidated law enforcement was initiated with formation of a State Highway Patrol in 1935. Rural schools consolidated at an increasing rate. Public utilities extended their reach through development of rural electric cooperatives; the first, Baker Electric of Cando, energized its lines in 1938.

More favorable weather improved crop yields in the 1940s. With more commodities to sell, farmers benefited even more from the higher prices stimulated by American entry into World War II. Within a span of five years, the farm debt in the state dropped markedly; at war's end in 1945 North Dakota residents had accumulated the largest per capita bank deposits in the nation.

Wartime prosperity continued into the late 1940s. Major federal projects kept the construction economy booming. In 1946, the demand for Missouri River flood control and diversion of the river's waters for irrigation and industrial development were rewarded with initiation of construction of the Garrison Dam. Reservoirs on the Sheyenne, James and other rivers were also constructed for flood control and municipal water purposes.

Development of natural resources expanded in 1951 when oil was discovered near Tioga. The resulting "oil rush" coincided with expanding use of lignite coal to generate electricity; in 1952 and 1954, two coal-fired plants were built near Velva and Mandan, and oil refineries were established at Williston and Mandan, as well.

Communication and transportation systems improved dramatically during the 1950s. The first television station went on the air in 1952 at Minot. Construction of a federal controlled access highway system began in 1956. In addition, by 1960 two large Air Force bases had been built at Grand Forks and Minot. changes in communications and transportation were enhanced by better airline service and a rapid shift away from dependence an railways. Though airline routes had included North Dakota since 1927, regular service expanded in the 1940s and 1950s, at least in part as a result of a conscious effort by state government to develop local and regional airports. Likewise, the steadily more modern network of state and federal highways made truck transportation into a viable alternative to railroads. Those same highways made private auto transportation more reliable; more North Dakotans bought cars after World War II than ever, soon giving the state a ratio of over two vehicles for every person in the state.

North Dakota's basic industry, agriculture, underwent major difficulties in the 1970s and 1980s, again emphasizing that the state was participant in a worldwide economy. Record prices for American grain in the early 1970s, the result of huge overseas sales to the Soviet Union, lead many farmers to expand their operations and others to go deeply into debt to enter agriculture. As the price of land climbed, so too did prices for agricultural equipment, seed, and other "inputs" of agriculture. Commodity prices, however, never returned to the levels of the early 1970s, and by the end of the decade many farmers found themselves unable to generate enough income to maintain their debts. The trend continued into the 1980s. Though land values dropped substantially, the numbers of farms has declined steadily.

The major issues of the 1980s and 1990s have been modern incarnations of longtime debates. One important issue has been economic development, and once again the discussions have centered on the creation of a climate favorable to capital investment in the state. A struggling farm economy has brought many changes to the state, and demands for improved state services for people with special needs have forced major reallocation of available tax dollars. The basic issues has been determining the proper use of limited tax resources and the most productive ways to stimulate economic development.

The issues that face modern North Dakota remain tied to its history. Attracting the capital necessary to develop necessary services, providing jobs and income for the people, and diversifying a colonial economy are tasks that have faced the state's leaders since its earliest days.

Wildlife and Plants

Part XI

Bald Eagle

Whitetail Buck

Geese

pheasant

Walleye

Coyote

My sister Jessie