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North Dakota History
ND Industry History
First People
The first people in North Dakota were big-game hunters who came to the area after the retreat of the glaciers around 10,000 B.C. The people hunted animals like wooly mammoths and giant bison
Hunter-gatherer and agriculture societies have existed here since 2,000 B.C.
Later civilizations were split between two methods of survival: nomadic groups dependent upon bison and agricultural societies that did some hunting.
Nomadic groups consisted of tribes like the Dakota, Assiniboine and Cheyenne, and were greatly influenced by the arrival of the horse to the Northern Plains.
Agricultural societies included the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara tribes, which were permanent residents whose villages served as major trading centers.
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Fur Trade
Fur trade in what is now North Dakota led to the first interaction between American Indians and Europeans:
- The first white man in North Dakota was Pierre de La Verendrye, who visited the Mandan tribe on behalf of a trading company.
- The first trading post in North Dakota was established in 1801 at Pembina by Alexander Henry.
- Trading posts were established at Fort Union near present-day Williston and Fort Clark near Washburn to further enhance trade with American Indians or Metis trappers and hunters.
- Metis were children of marriages between European traders and American Indians. They were widely known for their trading skills and actively participated in the oxcart trade between eastern North Dakota and St. Paul, Minn.
- The most popular furs for trade were buffalo hides and beaver pelts.
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| North Dakota Tourism/Jason Lindsey |
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Agriculture
Agriculture has been important to the people of North Dakota since they arrived in this area thousands of years ago.
The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara nations were sedentary people who devoted much of their time to raising crops for food.
A great settlement boom occurred within North Dakota from 1879-1886, bringing in 100,000 new settlers, mostly farmers. Some settled on 160-acre homesteads, while some created bonanza farms that were highly mechanized, well-funded and usually focused on large-scale wheat production. These farms thrived in the rich black soil of the Red River Valley.
Farms gradually moved away from the monoculture focused on wheat in the early part of the 20th century and diversified with crops like sugar beets, sunflowers and various row crops.
Farms grew in size as they became more mechanized. There were 77,690 farms in North Dakota in 1920 and that number has dropped to less than 30,000 today.
The average farm size in North Dakota today is about 1,280 acres. In 1920, it was 466 acres.
Agriculture is still North Dakota's largest industry.
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| North Dakota Tourism/Clayton Wolt |
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Cattle Ranching
The land in western North Dakota is better suited for cattle ranching than large-scale farming. In the 1880s, a cattle boom ocurred there, just as bonanza farms were booming in the eastern part of the state.
The Badlands and surrounding Little Missouri River valley were the center of the cattle boom. The region provided water, ample grass and shelter for grazing cattle.
The cattle town of Medora was founded in 1883 by French nobleman Marquis de Mores, who named it after his wife. He built her a 26-room mansion, the Chateau de Mores, which still stands today.
The town had a large meat packing plant, but competition from Chicago grain producers and a desire for corn-fed beef caused a downturn in business and the plant closed in 1886.
President Theodore Roosevelt had two cattle ranches near Medora in North Dakota in the 1880s, the Maltese Cross Ranch and the Elkorn Ranch.
The thriving cattle industry suffered a crushing blow in the winter of 1886-87 when blizzards beginning in early November killed off 75% of the region's cattle.
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Energy Development
North Dakota is a leading producer of coal, oil, gas and wind energy.
Beginning in the 1960s, Governor William Guy promoted the utilization of the vast lignite resources in North Dakota for energy development.
Coal-fueled electricity generating plants grew in number during the 1970s. Open-pit mining in the power-belt region of North Dakota provides coal for the plants.
High oil prices in 1978 and again in 2007-2008 stimulated oil booms in western North Dakota and vaulted the state to fifth in oil production.
In 1983, a coal-to-synthetic natural gas plant opened in Beulah.
North Dakota is exploring development of renewable energy fuel sources. Production of E85, a mixture of 15% gasoline and 85% ethanol from corn, soybeans and canola, is used to fuel automobiles.
Biodiesel burns 75% cleaner than traditional diesel.
North Dakota's average wind speed of 10.2 mph is conducive to wind farm turbines, and wind farms are on the increase in North Dakota.
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