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- The town of Rugby is the geographical center of North
America. A rock obelisk about 15 feet tall, flanked by poles
flying the United States and Canadian flags marks the
location.
- North Dakota passed a bill in 1987 making English the
official state language.
- Geologically speaking Hillsboro is located in a large,
flat, and ancient dried lake bottom surrounded by some of
the most fertile farmland in the world.
- Milk is the official state beverage.
- Westhope located on U.S. Highway 83 is a Port-of-Entry
into Canada. Each year more than 72,000 vehicles cross the
border at this point.
- An attempt to drop the word North from the state name
was defeated by the 1947 Legislative Assembly. Again in 1989
the Legislature rejected two resolutions intended to rename
the state Dakota.
- When Dakota Territory was created in 1861 it was named
for the Dakota Indian tribe. Dakota is a Sioux word meaning
friends or allies.
- Dakota Gasification Company in Beulah is the nation's
only synthetic natural gas producer.
- Bottineau is the southwestern gateway to the Turtle
Mountains, Lake Metigoshe and the International Peace
Garden.
- Petroglyphs carved into two granite boulders give
Writing Rock State Historic Site near Grenora its name.
Though their origins are obscure, the drawings probably
represent the Thunderbird, a mythological figure sacred to
Late Prehistoric Plains Indians. Outlines of the bird,
showing its wings extended and surrounded by abstract
designs, appear on both boulders.
- The Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba on
the north, Minnesota on the east, South Dakota to the south,
and Montana as its western neighbor border North Dakota.
- Max G. Taubert of Casselton built a 50 foot high pyramid
of empty oil cans. It is believed to be the highest oil can
structure in the world.
- Devils Lake is the largest natural body of water in
North Dakota. Devils Lake derives its name from the Native
American name Miniwaukan. Early explorers incorrectly
translated the word to mean Bad Spirit. Bolstered by the
many legends of drowned warriors and lake monsters the name
evolved into Devils Lake. This very fertile prairie lake
grows large numbers of the fish known as walleye, northern
pike, and white bass. The lake has earned the reputation of
being the Perch Capital of the World.
- This name Roughrider State originated in a
state-supported tourism promotion of the 1960s and 70s. It
refers to the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry that Theodore
Roosevelt organized to fight in the Spanish-American War.
- The Dakota Dinosaur Museum in Dickinson houses twelve
full scale dinosaurs, thousands of rock, mineral and fossil
specimens and a complete real Triceratops and Edmontosaurus.
- Richardton is home to the Abbey Church a Barvarian
Romanesque structure. Lofty arches, 52 stained glass
windows, 24 paintings of Saints on canvas above the arches,
and a huge carved crucifix delineate the impressive
interior.
- The Lone Tree Wildlife Management Area located southwest
of Harvey consists of 33,000 acres of gently rolling hills
bordering the Sheyenne River.
- The North Dakota State University research experiment
station in Hettinger is the largest state owned sheep
research center in the United States.
- Sitting Bull Burial State Historic Site located on the
western edge of Fort Yates marks the original grave of the
Hunkpapa Sioux leader. During the Ghost Dance unrest of 1890
an attempt was made to arrest him at his home on the Grand
River in South Dakota, and a skirmish ensued in which
Sitting Bull was killed.
- The World's Largest Buffalo monument is located at
Frontier Village in Jamestown. The structure is 26 feet
high, 46 feet long, and weighs 60 ton.
- North Dakota grows more sunflowers than any other state.
- Chartered in 1884 Jamestown College is the oldest
independent college in the state.
- Ellendale’s oldest attraction is the Opera House. Built
in 1909 it has a seating capacity for 1000 patrons.
- Kenmare is the Goose Capital of North Dakota. Kenmare is
the hunting haven of the north with an annual snow goose
count being over 400,000 birds.
- 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.
- Killdeer Mountain Roundup Rodeo is the home of North
Dakota's oldest PRCA rodeo.
- From 1934 to 1941 the Civilian Conservation Corps
maintained a base camp near Medora to perform landscape and
restoration work on the 128 acre Chateau de Mores State
Historic Site and the de Mores City Park, which opened to
the public on August 7, 1941.
- President Theodore Roosevelt first came to Dakota
Territory in September 1883 to hunt bison. Before returning
home to New York, he became interested in the cattle
business and established the Maltese Cross Ranch and the
Elkhorn Ranch.
- The world famous Paul Broste Rock Museum in Parshall is
built of natural granite quarried from the area. The entire
structure was constructed with volunteer labor and opened
for business in 1965. Paul called it his Acropolis on a
hill.
- Named after Henry D. Minot, a young entrepreneurial
visionary from the east, the town of Minot was conceived in
the late 1100%s. With the impending arrival of the Great
Northern Railroad the town site was actually selected in
November of 1886. Its phenomenal growth led to the early
nickname Magic City.
- New Leipzig is known as The Small, Friendly German Town
on the Dakota Prairie and hosts an annual Oktoberfest.
- The annual Central North Dakota Steam Threshers Reunion
is one of New Rockford's main annual events. It is held the
third weekend of September and boasts a variety of antique
farm machinery
- Founded in 1978 Fort Berthold Community College is a
tribally chartered college located on the Fort Berthold
Indian Reservation near the town of New Town.
- Niewoehner Funeral Home in Rugby has changed the skyline
of Rugby with the construction of a 30 foot tower containing
13 bells. The largest bells, of which there are two, are 40
inches in diameter and weigh about 1,300 pounds each.
- Only one word is needed to describe Lake Sakakawea
country - big. From the massive two-mile long Garrison Dam
near Riverdale to the end of Lake Sakakawea near Williston,
Lake Sakakawea is nearly 200 miles long with a shoreline of
countless bays and inlets that cover 1,600 miles.
- The American elm (Ulmus americana) is the official state
tree and is commonly found across North Dakota. The American
elm often reaches 120 feet or taller.
- In 1982 Rutland hosted what was considered the grand
daddy of all celebrations when the town went into the
"Guinness Book of World Records" with the cooking and eating
of the World's Largest Hamburger. That year, between 8 and
10 thousand people came to sample the tasty 3591 pound
burger.
- The rich heritage of Grand Forks is preserved at the
Myra Museum featuring an 1890's home dedicated to pioneer
women, a one-room school, carriage house, and the city's
original log Post Office.
- Turtle Lake celebrates turtles, hard-shelled reptiles
often found in the water. Turtle Lake has erected a two-ton
sculpture of a turtle near the entrance to the city. The
town is the home of the annual United States Turtle Racing
Championship.
- Of the 50 states North Dakota is 17th in size, with
70,665 square miles. North Dakota is 212 miles long north to
south and 360 miles wide east to west.
- Lawrence Welk left his home in Strasburg on his birthday
in 1924 to pursue his musical career. On July 2, 1955, he
made his debut on national television. The Lawrence Welk
Show was produced for 26 years and today reruns of the
popular program air weekly throughout the United States and
foreign countries.
- The Lewis and Clark expedition encountered their first
grizzly (brown) bears in North Dakota.
- A 12-foot-high bronze statue of Sakakawea and her baby
son Baptiste stands at the entrance to the North Dakota
Heritage Center on the state capitol grounds in Bismarck.
The statue, by Chicago artist Leonard Crunelle, depicts
Sakakawea with her baby strapped to her back and looking
westward toward the country she helped to open.
- Located southwest of Medora, De Mores State Historic
Site memorializes the life and activities in North Dakota of
Antoine de Vallombrosa the Marquis de Mores who arrived in
1883. Among his enterprises were a beef packing plant, a
stagecoach line, a freighting company, refrigerated railway
cars, cattle and sheep raising, land ownership and a new
town which he called Medora.
- The piles of rock on White Butte, North Dakota's highest
point, are known of as rock johnnies or sheepherder's
monuments and according to legend were piled there by
sheepherders as a way to pass the time while they tended
their flocks.
- 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.
- The official state flower is the wild prairie rose. The
flower sports five bright pink petals with a tight cluster
of yellow stamens in the center. The state rose grows along
roadsides, in pastures and in native meadows.
- The Big Hidatsa village site was occupied from about
1740 to 1850 and is the largest of three Hidatsa communities
near the mouth of the Knife River. It is believed to contain
the best-defined earth lodge depressions of any major Native
American site in the Great Plains.
- Fort Union Trading Post was the principal fur-trading
depot in the Upper Missouri River region from 1829 to 1867.
- Only the Best Come North is the motto of the Minot Air
Force Base located a few miles outside Minot's city limits.
The military community draws personnel from all over the
world.
Thanks to: Galbraith,
Us4UpNorth
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