Bismarck, ND news and local guide

In 1872 European Americans founded a settlement at a former Mandan site called Missouri Crossing, where the Lewis and Clark Expedition had crossed the river in 1804. It was soon named Edwinton, for Edwin Ferry Johnson, chief engineer of the Northern Pacific Railway, whose construction drew workers and settlers. In 1873 the railroad renamed the town Bismarck for the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck, hoping to attract German settlers and investment, and it is the only American state capital named for a foreign statesman. The discovery of gold in the Black Hills in 1874 spurred rapid growth, as thousands of miners poured into land the Lakota held sacred, raising tensions with Native Americans. Bismarck became a freight-shipping center on the Custer Route to the Black Hills. In 1879 the first recorded tornado in North Dakota history hurled a steamboat onto the bank of the Missouri near Bismarck. Sources Wikipedia: Bismarck, North Dakota