North Dakota: A Guide to the Northern Prairie State

by Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration for the State of North Dakota

Since most of North Dakota's industry is concerned with the processing of agricultural products, no large manufacturing centers have been developed; but mills, warehouses, poultry markets, and creameries have been established near the areas which they serve—many of the finest creameries are in sparsely settled rural areas. Fargo is the only city in the State that manufactures other than agricultural products.

Difficulties in shipping grain to outside markets provided one of the chief factors in the development of the many cooperatives which are important in the present economic life of the State. Grain farmers early realized that by acting independently they could not trade advantageously with eastern buyers. By 1891 there were ten farmers' elevators in the State, and the cooperative movement grew until the Equity Association, the National Producers Alliance, and the Better Farming Association developed the North Dakota division of the Farmers Educational and Cooperative Union of America, which at present includes some 540 buying and consumers' cooperatives in the State. At first exclusively grain-selling organizations, the cooperatives have expanded to include the handling of twine, machinery, petroleum products, tires, electricity, dairy products, and groceries.

The period since the World War has seen the revival of the occupation of the first white settlers—the fur industry. Some trapping is done each winter, but the fur sellers today do not rely upon this nineteenth-century method of getting pelts. Instead they have farms on which they raise the furbearing animals, usually silver-black foxes. The climate is well suited to this industry, for the cold winters produce heavy and valuable furs.

Although agriculture and its allied industries will probably always predominate, recent years have seen the beginning of the development of North Dakota's great mineral resources, which lay neglected or unrecognized for years while farmers attempted to emulate the phenomenal success of the bonanza wheat growers.

Ranchers in the western counties early discovered large deposits of lignite, a black or brownish substance in a stage between peat and bituminous coal, lying at or near the surface of the earth. Lignite has a conspicuously woody appearance, often showing clearly the grain of the wood or the shape of the trunks and branches from which it was formed. It is known to underlie the entire western part of the State. For many years its use was entirely local, chiefly because it contains a large amount of moisture which evaporates upon exposure to the air, causing the coal to crumble. To overcome this difficulty, shipment is now made in closed boxcars; briquetting of lignite has also proved successful, and the mineral is now common fuel. Lignite is used exclusively by State institutions and by many of the manufacturing concerns in the State. In the eight-month period from November 1, 1935, to June 30, 1936, the production of 355 mines, amounted to 1,704,983 tons, valued at $2,077,800.15. New mines are continually being opened. The rapidity with which the industry has been developed is demonstrated by the fact that there were 67 more mines in operation in 1935 than in 1931, with production in 1935 twice that of 1924 and eight times that of 1908.

The interest of the university school of mines in lignite experimentation did not end with the perfecting of the briquet process. The most recent achievement of the school is the production from lignite of activated carbon, a substance (hitherto produced largely from animal bones) used in water purification, sugar refining, rubber tire manufacture, and other commercial processes. The development of this product should furnish a new and profitable industry for western North Dakota.

Western North Dakota has, in addition to its lignite beds, large deposits of clay. These, like lignite, engaged the interest of the late Dean E. J. Babcock of the university school of mines, and largely as a result of his efforts are being developed. Upon his urging, a ceramics department was created at the university in 1910 to determine the commercial value of native clays. From experiments conducted, it was found that certain varieties made excellent brick, tile, and other building materials, while others were especially suitable for pottery. Reproductions of fine European pottery and original pieces of local design turned out at the university have attracted attention at exhibitions throughout the United States. Large-scale commercial development of the State's clay deposits is centered at Dickinson, where both building materials and pottery are produced.

Sodium sulphate and bentonite are two of the more recent mineral discoveries in North Dakota. In the southwestern part of the State are large beds of bentonite which, because close to the surface, are easily accessible for commercial purposes. Bentonite is used in the manufacture of paint, rubber, soap, cosmetics, dynamite, and a variety of other products; it has also been found to give rich gold and brown tones to decorative designs on pottery. The chalky-white crystals of sodium sulphate, sometimes known as Glauber's salts, are found in few places in the United States outside of the old lake beds of northwestern North Dakota. Sodium sulphate is principally used in the manufacture of paper. Millions of tons of it are easily accessible in the open lake beds where it has been deposited by springs.

Development of mineral resources should help to solve the unemployment problem of the State—a problem which is constantly growing. Except in recent years, residents have had no difficulty in finding work, because agricultural pursuits usually require the same amount of labor year after year regardless of agricultural prices. Despite this, new factors are increasing unemployment. In the period between 1930 and 1935, North Dakota was the only State in the spring wheat belt to show an increase in population. Another primary cause of increasing unemployment is the steadily growing percentage of persons over 40 years of age: in 1900, 18.4 percent of the population was over 40, in 1920 this had increased to 20.8 percent, and in 1930 to 25.6 percent.

In keeping with the comparative unimportance of the State labor movement at present is the small number of labor unions in North Dakota. The State's first labor organization was the Bismarck Typographical Union, chartered in 1883. In 1906 the American Federation of Labor granted a charter to the Fargo Trades and Labor Assembly, and in 1911 the State Federation was officially organized. Branches of the latter have since been formed in almost all of the larger towns in the State.