Over 2.5 million years ago, all the rivers of North Dakota, including the Missouri River, flowed northeast to the Hudson Bay. Glacial activity ultimately turned the Missouri River southward
Archaeological evidence, such as projectile points from the Paleo-Indian Period (12,000 BC to 7500 BC), suggests the earliest inhabitants of this area were nomadic hunters and gatherers.
The first permanent village in our region was the Menoken Village, on the banks of Apple Creek about 10 miles east of Bismarck. This village was established by a Late Plains Woodland tribe around 1000 AD. Around 200 people lived at Menoken in 30 oval-shaped earth lodges
The Bismarck area is the ancestral homeland of the Mandan Indians. The Mandan migrated north to this part of North Dakota as early as the 14th century and established agricultural communities along the upper Missouri River and its tributaries
Established by the Mandan in the mid-1500s, Chief Looking’s Village is located on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River, in present-day Bismarck
While the immediate area around Bismarck was predominantly the homeland of the Mandan, the Hidatsa and Arikara also inhabited this area long before Europeans arrived. The main Hidatsa villages were located north of Bismarck near the confluence of the Knife and Missouri Rivers
Like all tribes on the Northern Plains, the Mandan and Hidatsa hunted and relied on buffalo. But they were also North Dakota’s original farmers. The villagers grew beans, squash, maize, and other crops and harvested seasonal fruits like chokecherries and buffalo berries
The Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara used bull boats to travel on the Missouri River. A bull boat was constructed of a round, willow frame covered by buffalo hides, and could accommodate one or two passengers or a few hundred pounds of meat
The Mandan and Hidatsa villages were important hubs of a transcontinental trade network, as were the Arikara villages further to the south and the Assiniboine further to the north. These agricultural tribes traded crops for goods, such as hides, shells, and stone material, brought by nomadic hunting tribes
Beginning in the 1700s, Lakota tribes (Sioux) began to appear on the Northern Plains, having moved gradually westward from their traditional lands along the Minnesota River
Often credited as the first known European to arrive in our area, French fur trader Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, Sieur de la Verendrye accompanied an Assiniboine trading party overland from Lake Winnipeg. They reached the Mandan villages near the mouth of the Heart River, southwest of present-day Bismarck, in 1738.
Increased trade and contact with Europeans came with deadly consequences. In 1781, smallpox devastated the Mandan people. Eighty percent died within weeks; a population of 10,000 to 15,000 across seven villages was reduced to just 3,000 people. The Hidatsa suffered immensely as well
By the turn of the 19th century, the watershed of the Missouri River, including present-day Bismarck, was part of the Louisiana Territory controlled by France. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson sent his protégé, James Monroe, to France to assist in negotiations over the Louisiana Territory.
Even before negotiations with the French government over the Louisiana Territory, President Jefferson had persuaded Congress to fund a diplomatic, commercial, and scientific expedition of the Missouri River to its ultimate source, which many believed would lead to the Pacific Ocean
Sheheke, or White Coyote, was born at On-a-Slant Village and became a leader among the Mandan. When the Lewis and Clark Expedition arrived in this area, Sheheke spent the winter of 1804 - 1805 getting to know members of the Corps of Discovery
Paddlewheel boats first traveled up the Missouri River in 1825, carrying a U.S. military delegation charged with signing treaties with various tribes. These boats were faster than keelboats and canoes, but they still relied on raw manpower, or in some cases, horses
Tatanka Iyotanka, or Sitting Bull, was a leader and holy man of the Lakota. He was born along the Grand River in South Dakota around 1831, and is best known for his role in the Lakota resistance against white encroachment on the Northern Plains.
The steamboat helped spur the growth and development of the upper Missouri River country, in particular the fur trade. But it also brought non-commercial visitors. Aboard the Yellowstone on its first trip to Fort Union was artist and ethnologist George Catlin.
German ethnologist Prince Alexander Philipp Maximilian, ruler of Neuwied, Prussia (now in Germany) and naturalist, explorer and Swiss artist Karl Bodmer arrived at Fort Clark and wintered with the Mandan and Hidatsa on the Knife River, 50 miles northwest of Bismarck.
In 1837, the steamboat St. Peters departed from St. Louis on a journey to Fort Clark. The first signs of smallpox on the boat appeared just days after departing St. Louis, as one of the workers on board became ill. After the boat reached Fort Clark, smallpox swept through the nearby Knife River Villages
Pizi, or Gall, was born around 1849. He was a leader of the Húŋkpapȟa Lakota as they defended their homelands between the Missouri River and the Bighorn Mountains against white encroachment in the 1860s and 1870s
In summer 1862, the U.S. government had failed to provide goods and money owed by treaty to bands of the Dakota experiencing severe hardship in Minnesota. In response, a group of Santee Sioux attacked and killed hundreds of white settlers along the Minnesota River. The U.S
Burnt (Boat) Creek and Burnt Boat Drive were said to have been named for an incident on a sandbar on the Missouri River near present-day Bismarck, although the details vary depending on the source.
Woodcutters, or “woodhawks” as they were popularly known, were a necessity for the steamboats that traveled the Missouri River. Woodhawks either plied their trade as independent businessmen or were part of the crews whose responsibility was to cut wood when the boats docked along the riverbank
In 1870, a settlement formed near present-day Fox Island, across the Missouri River from Fort Abraham Lincoln. The village consisted of small stores, livery stables, and, most notably, saloons and houses of ill repute.
In 1872, a year before the railroad arrived, the U.S. Army established Camp Greeley to protect railroad construction crews and serve as a supply depot for forts along the Missouri River
The same year Camp Hancock was established, the U.S. Army established Fort McKeen across the Missouri River to the southwest of Bismarck, named in honor of Colonel H. Boyd McKeen, who died at the Battle of Cold Harbor in 1864. The fort was enlarged and renamed Fort Abraham Lincoln in 1873
Northern Pacific engineers selected the site of Bismarck as a crossing point for the railroad in 1872, and squatters had been living in the area in anticipation of the coming of the railroad since 1871. The city was originally named Edwinton, in honor of the railroad’s chief engineer, Edwin F
John Yegen came to Bismarck in 1872 and opened a grocery and bakery on Main Avenue between Fourth and Fifth Streets. The original building burned, but Yegen rebuilt. The Yegen Grocery was moved to 810 East Main Avenue, ca. 1910, but the business closed in the early 1980s.
Linda Warfel Slaughter is among Bismarck’s most accomplished pioneers. Born, raised, and educated in Ohio, she came to Dakota Territory with her husband Benjamin Franklin Slaughter, who was a surgeon for troops stationed at Fort Rice. Together, they settled in what would become Bismarck in 1872
Though often overlooked, Black Americans were integral in the founding of Bismarck and are counted among the area’s first pioneers. According to the Dakota Territorial Census of 1885, Burleigh County had a population of 5,253, of which 79 were recorded as black residents
Mark Kellogg was a newspaper reporter who arrived in Bismarck in May 1873 around the same time Col. Clement A. Lounsberry established The Bismarck Tribune. Lounsberry hired Kellogg part-time to work as an editor and printer. When it became known that Lt. Col. Custer and the 7th Cavalry stationed at
The Northern Pacific railroad reached the site of present-day Bismarck on June 3, 1873. The first train arrived at Bismarck two days later and carried the printing press for The Bismarck Tribune
The Bismarck Tribune was founded in 1873 and is the longest continuously published newspaper in North Dakota. Its founder, Col. Clement A. Lounsberry, came from Minnesota following the progression of the railroad and decided to name his publication after the Minneapolis Tribune where he had worked as editor
Few have left their mark on the history of this area like Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer. A Civil War hero who achieved the rank of brevet major general, Custer continued to serve in the military after the war, with posts in Texas and Kansas
In the summer of 1873, Lt. Col. Custer was second-in-command to Colonel David Stanley on the Yellowstone Expedition, accompanying a survey crew for the Northern Pacific Railroad to the Yellowstone River in southeastern Montana
Dr. Henry Rinaldo Porter was a contract surgeon for the U.S. Army, arriving at Camp Hancock in October 1873. Of the three doctors who accompanied the 7th Cavalry to the Little Bighorn, Dr. Porter was the only one who survived
Bismarck evolved from an end-of-the-line encampment that sprouted up where it was determined the railroad would eventually cross the Missouri River. Before it was renamed Bismarck, the townsite of Edwinton was platted here
One of Bismarck’s first barbers was William H. W. Comer, a black man better known as “Professor” Comer. He had come west to serve as the Post Barber at Fort Sully and arrived in Bismarck in 1873 to open the Occidental Shaving, Hairdressing and Bathing Rooms. Comer took part in many “firsts” in Bismarck
In 1874, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer led an expedition from Fort Abraham Lincoln to the Black Hills in South Dakota. The Black Hills belonged to the Lakota under the terms of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, but rumors of gold attracted interest from prospectors and other settlers
Sarah “Sally” Campbell was born enslaved in 1823 and was brought to the Dakotas at age 11 to work as a cook on Missouri River steamboats. Sally gained her freedom when she was 14 and two years later, married a fellow steamboat worker from Illinois.
In Bismarck’s early years, the Missouri River was an impediment to most east-west travel as it was too dangerous to cross by means other than steamboat or rope ferry. Bismarck’s first steam-ferry, the Union, began transporting people back and forth to Fort Lincoln in 1874
Alexander McKenzie was a pioneer, Burleigh County sheriff, and a political boss who engineered North Dakota’s early Republican political machine. He also was a railroad agent and a key player in moving the Dakota territorial capital from Yankton to Bismarck
The wooden Merchants Hotel in 1876 stood on the northeast corner of Third Street and Main Avenue. It was destroyed in the August 1898 fire and reconstructed as a store building.
On December 6, 1875, President Ulysses S. Grant issued an order that all Lakota and Cheyenne were to report to established reservations by January 31, 1876, or be declared “hostiles” at war with the United States
Capt. Grant Marsh is the most famous of the 19th century riverboat captains on the Missouri River. He piloted the steamboat that transported the great Lakota leader Sitting Bull and his followers to
After Lt. Col. Custer’s expedition to the Black Hills in 1874 confirmed the presence of gold, many Bismarck merchants wanted a reliable route to ship goods to the miners and other new inhabitants of the Black Hills
The Sheridan House was a railroad hotel built in 1877 by Eber H. Bly, an entrepreneur who came west to dabble in coal mining. He operated the hotel until the 1890s. The hotel was the largest building in the Dakota Territory upon its completion.
Austin Logan established Logan’s Grocery in 1877. He had arrived in Bismarck from Connecticut a year earlier at the age of 21 and with only $200 in his pocket. He was a successful business man and, in 1881, he built a new store building at the same location on Third Street and Broadway Avenue
The City of Mandan was incorporated on February 24, 1881, following the completion of the Northern Pacific Railroad through central North Dakota in 1879