Bismarck, city (2020 pop. 73,622),
state capital and seat of Burleigh co., S central N.Dak., on hills
overlooking the Missouri River; inc. 1873. The trade center for a large
spring-wheat, livestock, and dairying region, Bismarck is also a financial
and telecommunications center, and development of the oil reserves in the
nearby Williston Basin is important. Lewis and Clark camped nearby in
1804–5. With the beginning of river traffic in the 1830s, a steamboat
port called the “Crossing on the Missouri” emerged here. In
1872, Camp Greeley (later Camp Hancock) was erected to protect workers
building the Northern Pacific RR. When the railroad reached the fort the
next year, a town was laid out, subsequently named Bismarck in the hope of
attracting German investment in the railroad. Bismarck boomed as a river
port and railroad center, a gateway for western expansion, and supply point
for the Black Hills gold rush (1874). It became the territorial capital in
1883.
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