Visiting the Dakota Capitals

We left Dickinson on Thursday morning, with a horribly dirty car, more brownish than white, caused by the heavy oil trucks on the highway over from Minot, driving in the rain, and by the dirt road leading to the ranch. Had to find a car wash,,, and that's what we did first thing.

We met for lunch with Fred from Tourism ND in Bismarck, at the Starving Rooster (same like in Grand Forks), and headed on from there to check out the expanded North Dakota Heritage Center (pics on left and below), a really interesting museum with different focuses: most interesting was the Gallery on "Early People", dealing with the Native People in the area. Highly interesting as well as "Geologic Times" and "Yesterday and Today". We've been to Bismarck a couple of times before, among other for the United Tribes International Powwow and for the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial, but haven't seen the new History Center yet.

Bismarck (73,000 population) is the capital of North Dakota, but it's State Capitol is different from the usual ones, rather a boxy skycraper. But, it has an observation deck on the 18th floor which offers a bird’s-eye view of the area with the Missouri River separating Bismarck and its sister city Mandan. Present-day central North Dakota was inhabited by the historic Mandan Native American tribe. In 1872 European Americans founded a settlement, called "Missouri Crossing", so named because the Lewis and Clark Expedition crossed the river there on their exploration of the Louisiana Purchase in 1804-1806. In 1873, the Northern Pacific Railway renamed the city as Bismarck, in honor of German chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Railroad officials hoped to attract German immigrant settlers to the area. In 1883 Bismarck became the capital of the Dakota Territory, and in 1889 the state capital of the new state of North Dakota.

Nowadays it's a fast-growing city, getting more and more attractive - new for us was, e.g. "Art Alley", an alley in downtown with great murals:

The growing residential neighborhoods to the north, we explored with our old-time friend Terry, retired tourism director from Bismarck, and his wife, in the late afternoon. Of course, we also had to do research in the two new breweries in town, Bismarck Brewing and Stonehome Brewing Company (pic below) and were enjoying good conversation with our friends. It became a long evening,,,

On to Pierre - the capitol of South Dakota - after breakfast at Little Cottage Cafe in Bismarck, a true jewel and good value for breakfast. Pierre was founded in 1880. That same year, the railroad first crossed the Missouri River, and the town grew along the river’s east bank. When South Dakota achieved statehood in 1889, Pierre became its capital, today it is a small city of about 14,000, with a "sister city" by name Fort Pierre. Here, in 1804, the Lewis and Clark expedition first met the Teton Sioux and that's where we stayed in the early 2000s, when we did research for a series of articles.

Our appointment this afternoon was at the SD Cultural Heritage Center (in a very modern building, see pic), where we not only got a tour through the exhibitions, but, also got a chance to see the state archives, which are loaded with high-class items of all kinds, especially Native American relicts.

It's most prestigious piece is a Lakota horse effigy dance stick (pic) from circa 1870:

Hard to say which one is the better one: the ND or the SD History Center - both are highly instructive. Enjoyed the (more "classical" SD State Capitol in the sun (for the first time!) and visited the interior - no security, no controls, just walked in -, and the surrounding park with the Governor's Mansion. We had a wonderful dinner then with Maureen, another long-time friend from SD Tourism, and called it a (long) day.