CITY OF BISMARCK
Bismarck is in the south-central portion of the State where the Northern Pacific Railway and US 10 cross the Missouri River. The natural ford here was long known to Indians and buffalo as one of the narrowest and least dangerous crossings on the Missouri. A "pay roll" town because of the State and Federal offices, it is a growing city despite post-boom years; 87 new homes were built during 1936. Modern business buildings constitute the downtown area, and comfortable, new, bungalow-type homes, clean streets, and well-kept lawns can be seen on the hills which not long ago were the home of Indian tribes.
The generous western spirit of the residents seems reflected in the structure of the city. Nothing is crowded. On the east bank of the restless Missouri River the site of the city is hilly, rising to the north. Gullies and small hills in the residential district have been filled in and smoothed off as the city has grown. Along the Missouri near the city cretaceous rocks are exposed. Strata of shale reaching up almost to the summit of the bank are topped with a thin layer of drift. Butte-like hills can be seen in the distance north and east of the city, their flat tops capped with Fox Hills sandstone.
In Bismarck are the headquarters of both of the old-line political parties and the various progressive groups. Hotels are the unofficial headquarters of different parties, especially when the legislature is in session. At such times, although the city is businesslike on the surface, there is an air of expectancy as it awaits new developments in the State's changing political creeds.
Pioneers of the city can still remember the first legislative session in 1889, when the lobbyists for the Louisiana Lottery poured their money into legislators' pockets, and were shadowed and exposed by private detectives hired by a Governor and his friends. Nor forgotten are the machinations of Alexander McKenzie, who represented the railroad interests in all things political, and who in later years exercised his peculiar talents in Alaska to such an extent that Rex Beach accorded him the role of villain in his novel The Spoilers (see below). And even the young citizens recall how four governors succeeded one another in the teakwood gubernatorial office in the course of a little more than six months.
Long before the arrival of the white man, the Mandan Indians found the Bismarck-Mandan area a favorable spot for their homes. Their culture gives this vicinity an interesting archeological background (see Indians and Their Predecessors). Several village sites of the Mandans and Hidatsa are in this vicinity, and a full-sized model of an earth lodge is constructed on the Capitol grounds. Artifacts, including implements of warfare and agriculture, pottery, and beads, were recovered in these sites and are preserved in the museum of the State historical society.
French fur traders, Lewis and Clark, Prince Paul of Wurttemberg, Maximilian, Prince of Wied, and many another early adventurer and explorer passed the site of Bismarck in voyages up the Missouri, but squatters, anticipating the westward path of the Northern Pacific Railway, were the first to settle this vicinity, in the winter of 1871-72. During construction of the railroad a settlement called Burleightown, named for Dr. Walter Burleigh of the Northern Pacific Company, grew up near where Fort Lincoln stands. At the end of the railroad grade on the bank of the Missouri, just opposite Fort McKeen, was a tent-town called Carleton City, later called Point Pleasant, and known to the soldiers of the fort as Whiskey Point.
The site of the city was originally occupied by Camp Greeley, later known as Camp Hancock, a military post established in 1872 for the protection of railroad crews. One of the log buildings of the post is incorporated into the United States Weather Bureau at 101 Main Avenue, the original post site, and is the oldest building in Bismarck.