The junction with US 12 (see Tour 9) is in Bowman, and the two routes unite to 250 m. where US 85 turns L. and reaches the South Dakota Line at 264.5 m., 103 m. N. of Belle Fourche, S. Dak. (see S. Dak. Tour 13).
SIDE TOUR 4A
Junction US 85—Hanks—Grenora—Sodium Lakes—Writing Rock. ND 50 and unnumbered county roads.
Junction with US 85 to Writing Rock, 30.3 m.
G. N. Ry. parallels route between junction with US 85 and Grenora. Graveled roadbed 12 m., graded dirt roads and prairie trail remainder of route.
Accommodations in principal towns.
This short route passes through a region of boulder-strewn, smoothly rounded hills left by glacial action, and leads to extensive but undeveloped sodium sulphate beds and the archeologically important Writing Rock State Park. The populations of both towns on the route are chiefly Scandinavian; they were settled by immigrants who arrived with or shortly after the railroad.
ND 50 branches W. from US 85 (see Tour 4) at Zahl.
HANKS, 5 m. (2,114 alt., 213 pop.), named for W. F. Hanks, a Powers Lake rancher and banker who was connected with the town site company, begins its history with the arrival of the G. N. branch line in 1916. In the 1890's the N-N (N Bar N) Cattle Co. of St. Louis, which ran herds of livestock S. of the Missouri River in central Montana, refused to ship their stock over the G. N. because of a disagreement with that line. As a result they had to trail their large herds many weary miles to the nearest Soo Line points, which were at Bowbells and Kenmare, N. Dak. (see Tour 7). As many as 30,000 of these Chicago-bound cattle passed through Hanks in a single season on their way to the railroad, herded by dust-caked cowboys of the authentic, original, Wild West variety.
Ranching was the chief industry of this section when it was first settled, and there is still some small-scale ranching in the vicinity.