Name Recognition

The Story of Bismarck, North Dakota

Issue #3 of  "The Capital Idea"

Michael Round

December 2, 2009

The story of the Transcontinental Railroad, and the meeting at Promontory Point, Utah, is well-known. 

The political story behind the meeting railroads is a story for another issue.  You may wonder when you hear the word "meeting", who met?

The Union Pacific, heading west out of Omaha, and the Southern Pacific, heading east out of California.

What you may not know is the story of a third railroad:  the Northern Pacific.

But let's back up a second, and consider the country at that time.  Here is a map of the United States at the time of the Civil War.

Prior to the Civil War, the Select Committee on the Pacific Railroad and Telegraph of the 34th Congress, in 1856, proposed a railroad bill connecting the Pacific coast with the rest of the country.  There was little between that part of the country, and the rest of the "populated" country.

The thought:  if this is going to be part of the USA, we have to be able to communicate with it.  Travel to it - reasonably.

Hence, the Railroad Act.

Six years later the Pacific Railway Act of 1862 was approved, and signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln.

It created the Southern Pacific, Union Pacific, and Northern Pacific railroads.

We know the task of the Southern and Union Pacific railroads.

The Northern Pacific had another task.  Get across the northern part of the country - from Lake Superior to Washington State.  Duluth, Minnesota served as the east port of the Northern Pacific.

Of course, one doesn't merely lay tracks to get across country.  There needs to be careful surveying and engineering.

Edwin Ferry Johnson was such a person for the Northern Pacific Railroad.

Across the country he headed, towards the Missouri River in central "Dakota Territory".  The Missouri Crossing.

It was 1872.

The town was named Edwinton, after the Northern Pacific employee.

But let's remember the period of time.  The 1860s to 1870s.  There was no population here.  The railroad was coming under continued attacks from Native Americans.

Remember this as well - the building of the railroad across the northern part of the United States was not to provide any service to people here.  There were no people.  It was to connect the Pacific Coast to the rest of the country.

How does one get people to move to Edwinton?  With population comes protection and security for the railroad, after all.

Nobody came.

But this was the time of immigration.  People from all over Europe were coming to the United States.  We were, and remain, a melting pot.

A colonization office was established in Europe.  The goal?  Get a number of Germans to immigrate to Edwinton.

Who would?  Would you?

Let's suppose the name were changed - something appealing - something attractive - to potential German immigrants.  The German Empire had just been formed - it was 1871.  The first Chancellor?

Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck.

You might not move to Edwinton, in the Dakota Territory.  However, would you move to Bismarck?

And now you know "The Capital Idea".