November 2, 1889: North Dakota and South Dakota Are Admitted to the Union

November 2, 1889: North Dakota and South Dakota are admitted to the Union, as the 39th State and the 40th State.

Both States were in what would now be called the Midwest, and had been acquired as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The Dakota Territory was created in 1861, out of the Nebraska Territory, and included all of the present-day States of North and South Dakota, plus most of what would become Montana, and the northern half of what would become Wyoming. In 1863, the Montana and Wyoming portions were carved out, as part of the new Idaho Territory.

Why did it become 2 separate States? Regionalist tensions between the Northern and the Southern parts of the territory were present since the beginning. The Southern part was always more populated: In the 1880 Census, the Southern part had a population of 98,268, two and a half times the Northern part's 36,909.

The Southern part also considered the North to be somewhat disreputable. According to Kimberly Porter, a history professor at the University of North Dakota, "The south half did not like the north half." In a 2016 article for Time magazine, she said that the South thought the North was "too much controlled by the wild folks, cattle ranchers, fur traders."

The coming of the railroads meant that the Northern and Southern parts were connected to different hubs: The northern part, via Fargo, which became North Dakota's largest city, and Bismarck, which became its State Capitol, became more closely tied to the "Twin Cities" of Minneapolis and St. Paul; while the Southern part became more closely tied to Sioux City, Iowa, and from there to Omaha, Nebraska. (Both Minneapolis and Omaha were major rail hubs by the standards of the time, due to the kinds of goods there, and the need to ship them out quickly.)

The Southern part was anxious for Statehood so they could have their own capital, and wouldn't have to deal with the politicians in Bismarck. They had already crossed the 60,000 population necessary for Statehood; so, they held a convention in September of 1883, drafted a State Constitution, and submitted it to the voters. It was approved by the electors and submitted to Congress.

A bill providing for Statehood of the Dakota Territory south of the 46th parallel of latitude was passed by the U.S. Senate in December 1884, but it failed to pass the U.S. House. A 2nd Constitutional Convention for South Dakota was held in September 1885, framing a new Constitution, and the people ratified it with an overwhelming vote.

By 1889, and the accession of Benjamin Harrison to the Presidency, North Dakota had 150,000 people, and South Dakota had 340,000 -- about a 2.2-to-1 ratio. Harrison was a Republican, and Congressional Republicans thought that accepting the North and the South as 2 separate States would mean 4 new Republican Senators. More often than not, that has been the case: With occasional exceptions, such as George McGovern and Tom Daschle, even the Democrats sent to the Senate by the Dakotas have tended to be centrist or even conservative.

North Dakota and South Dakota became States simultaneously on November 2, 1889. Harrison had the papers shuffled to obscure which one was signed first, and the order went unrecorded, although the U.S. Department of State now recognizes North Dakota as the 39th State and South Dakota as the 40th State. There would quickly be more States, as Montana was added 6 days later, Washington 3 days after that, and Idaho and Wyoming 6 months later.

While Rapid City turned out to be South Dakota's largest city, its Capitol became Pierre -- and that's pronounced like "Peer," not "Pee-YAIR," like the French version of "Peter."

According to the 2020 Census, North Dakota has about 780,000 people, fewer than any State except Alaska, Vermont and Wyoming. In contrast, South Dakota has about 880,000, so the gap between them is smaller than ever.

What is a far wider gap is in tourism. South Dakota, near Rapid City, has Mount Rushmore, with its giant faces of 4 Presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. TR was chosen because he was the 1st President to have spent any time in the American West, and greatly extolled its virtues. North Dakota's biggest tourist attraction is TR's cattle ranch, outside Medora. These attractions also exemplify the topography: North, a ranch, full of flat land; South, a mountain, in the Black Hills, sacred to the native Sioux people.

The highest-ranking politician ever to come from North Dakota has been Warren Christopher, the Secretary of State in President Bill Clinton's 1st term, 1993 to 1997. The highest-ranker born in South Dakota has been Hubert Humphrey, Vice President under Lyndon Johnson, 1965 to 1969, and narrowly missing being elected President himself in 1968. Since Humphrey lived his adult life in Minnesota, and represented it in the Senate, the closest any politician representing South Dakota has come to becoming President is Senator George McGovern, who was the Democratic nominee in 1972. But where Richard Nixon beat Humphrey in a squeaker, he beat McGovern in a landslide.

Both States are known for their wide-open rural space, and neither has a city large enough for major league sports. Their people tend to root for the Minnesota teams, except in the westernmost parts of the States, where they are closer to Denver and its teams.

In North Dakota, Fargo is home to the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks of baseball's American Association, an independent league roughly equivalent to Class A ball, 3 levels below the major leagues; the Fargo Force of the United States Hockey League; and North Dakota State University, who have the only NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS, formerly known as Division I-A) team in the State.

The University of North Dakota, in Grand Forks, have one of the great college hockey programs, having won 8 National Championships. But their football team is in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS, formerly named Division I-AA), and are thus a step below NDSU.

In South Dakota, Sioux Falls is home to the Sioux Falls Canaries of the American Association, the Sioux Falls Skyforce of the NBA G League, and the Sioux Falls Stampede of the USFL. The University of South Dakota, in Vermillion, and South Dakota State University, in Brookings, compete in NCAA Division I, but their football teams are in the FCS, on the same level as UND and a step below NDSU.

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November 2, 1889 was a Saturday. Baseball was out of season. Basketball hadn't been invented yet. Hockey barely existed. There were college football games, but not as many as there could have been. The day before, Rutgers had beaten the Ridgefield Athletic Club, 18-0 in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Two days before that, Yale beat Penn, 20-10 in Philadelphia; and Lehigh had beaten Lafayette, 16-10 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Harvard beat a clearly exhausted Penn team, 35-0 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Cornell beat Stevens Institute of Hoboken, New Jersey, 39-4 at Ithaca, New York. Lehigh came right back from their defeat of arch-rival Lafayette, and clobbered Columbia, 51-6 in Bethlehem.

And Princeton beat Wesleyan University by a whopping 98-0 in Middletown, Connecticut; and, in a Thanksgiving Day season-finale battle of unbeatens, 10-0 at the Berkeley Oval in The Bronx.

And in English soccer, Royal Arsenal Football Club, the team that would become Arsenal, played a London Senior Cup match, at home at Manor Field in Plumstead, Kent, now a part of South-East London, and beat Unity Football Club, 4-1.

October 31, 1941: Mount Rushmore Is "Finished"

October 31, 1941: Lincoln Borglum admits defeat, and declares that his father Gutzon Borglum's masterwork, Mount Rushmore outside Rapid City, South Dakota, is finished.

Construction had begun in 1927. The faces of Presidents (left to right) George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, had been finished (in, respectively, 1939 and 1937), but the rest of it, which was meant to include them down to the waist, was not, except for the lapels on Washington's jacket. Gutzon had died earlier in the year, and there just wasn't enough money to do it all.

Gutzon had chosen his 4 Presidents carefully. Washington was "the Father of Our country." His face was finished in 1934. Jefferson was chosen not because he was the author of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, but because the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 made him the man who opened the American West, starting the nation's expansion. His face was finished in 1936.

Lincoln, for whom Gutzon named his son, not only saved the Union, but his championing of the Transcontinental Railroad also played a major part in the opening of the American West. Certainly, Gutzon didn't choose Lincoln for ending slavery: Gutzon was a white supremacist, and had no qualms about taking a mountain that Native Americans had considered sacred land. They had named it "Six Grandfathers," although there are now four faces on it. Lincoln's face was finished in 1937.

And Theodore Roosevelt was included because, due to his ownership and operation of a ranch in North Dakota, and his efforts to preserve many Western lands as National Parks and National Monuments, he was the 1st President with any real connection to the American West. Jefferson's home, Monticello, may have been in the Appalachian Mountains outside Charlottesville, Virginia, but it's unlikely that he ever crossed over to the other side of the Appalachians. He had Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and their group to it for him, and report back on what the land, the water, the plants, the animals, and the weather were like. At any rate, TR's face was finished in 1939.

Many TV shows and movies set in the future have depicted a 5th face on Mount Rushmore, although it varies, depending on the writer. Usually, it's some unidentified President, in our future but the show's/film's past.

Other Presidents have been suggested for being put on Mount Rushmore, with varying degrees of seriousness: Franklin Roosevelt, for winning World War II; John F. Kennedy, for starting America's space program; Ronald Reagan, for "winning the Cold War" (his supporters have a slogan: "Put Ron on the Rock!"; Barack Obama, for being the nation's 1st black President; and Donald Trump, because putting his face on Mount Rushmore might be the only way to satisfy his massive ego.

There are 2 problems with this, regardless of which Presidential honoree you support. One is that it is widely believed that there is no room for a 5th face on Rushmore. Whether that is fact or a matter of opinion is not clear.

The other problem is Gutzon Borghlum's original meaning of Mount Rushmore: A tribute to America and its westward expansion. None of the suggestions mentioned above fit that description. Indeed, of those 5, only Reagan and Obama ever even lived in a Western State. And, given that we didn't stay on the Moon, the argument that Kennedy stood for American expansionism doesn't go very far (even if the missions he inspired did).

Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle are sometimes called the New York Yankees' "Mount Rushmore." This can also be done for another legendary sports franchise, although not an American one: The Montreal Canadiens, with Howie Morenz, Maurice Richard, Jean Béliveau and Guy Lafleur.

The Boston Celtics? If you limit it to players, thus eliminating Red Auerbach, you would have Bill Russell and Larry Bird, but who else? Which two out of Bob Cousy, John Havlicek, Dave Cowens and Paul Pierce? Somebody's gotta go, and it's not definitive.

The Green Bay Packers? Again, if you take out coaches, so no Vince Lombardi, you can take Don Hutson -- but who are the other three? Out of Clarke Hinkle, Tony Canadeo, Bart Starr, Paul Hornung, Jim Taylor, Willie Davis, Ray Nitschke, Brett Favre, Reggie White and Aaron Rodgers, seven gotta go.

The Chicago Bears? You could do four running backs: Red Grange, Bronko Nagurski, Gale Sayers and Walter Payton. Or four linebackers: Bill George, Dick Butkus, Mike Singletary and Brian Urlacher. But can you really do two of each? Then you'd have to leave four guys off, and I'm not going to tell any of those linebackers he's being left off. (George is dead, but the man Sports Illustrated's Rick Reilly once called "the meanest Bear ever" might come back and get you if you tell him he's off.)

I suppose it could be done with coaches in Notre Dame football: Knute Rockne, Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian and Lou Holtz. Alabama football can have Wallace Wade, Frank Thomas, Bear Bryant and Nick Saban.

But the original Mount Rushmore is set: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. When the Montreal Expos moved to become the Washington Nationals in 2005, they set up "The Racing Presidents," with runners wearing big foam heads of the Rushmore Presidents, and wearing jerseys over their period costumes, reading GEORGE 1, TOM 3, ABE 16 and TEDDY 26, for their places in the Presidential order. 

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October 31, 1941 was a Friday. It was also Halloween. It was also the day the Nazis sank the destroyer USS Reuben James. I have a separate entry for that event. Actress Sally Kirkland was born on this day.

Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL season didn't begin until the next day. So there were no scores on this historic day.