DAKOTA. 



219 



Pierre University at Pierre, Yankton College, 

 at Yankton, Dakota University at Mitchell, 

 Sioux Falls University and All-Saints School 

 at Sioux Falls, Jamestown College, Tower Uni- 

 versity, Groton College, Redmond College, and 

 Augustana College. Over 600 students attend 

 these institutions. 



Charities and Prisons. The Hospital fr the 

 Insane at Yankton has a capacity for 120 pa- 

 tients, but in September 160 inmates were re- 

 ported. To relieve this crowded condition, 

 the appropriation of the Legislature previously 

 mentioned was made, but as charges of ir- 

 regularity were preferred against a majority 

 of the Board of Trustees of the institution, 

 the Governor refused to sanction the expendi- 

 ture of this appropriation under the direction 

 of the present board. The North Dakota Hos- 

 pital at Jamestown is in the third year of its 

 existence, and had cared for 248 patients up 

 to September of this year. There were then 

 147 inmates. The Legislature of 1883 located 

 a reform school at Plankinton, Aurora 

 County, but no appropriation for the erection 

 of buildings or the maintenance of the school 

 was made till 1887. The contract for the 

 building was let August 9, and the work is 

 now in progress. At the Sioux Falls Peniten- 

 tiary there were 82 convicts in June, against 

 92 at the same time last year. At Bismarck 

 there were 56, an increase of 4 over 1886. 



Mining. The Black Hills produce all the 

 gold and silver mined in Dakota, and nearly 

 the entire output is credited to but four mines. 

 The total production of gold and silver since 

 the settlement of this region in 1877, is $33,- 

 770,000. In 1885 the product was $3,125,- 

 000, a slight decrease from 1885. The whole 

 country west of the Missouri river and a large 

 part of the surface of North Dakota is un- 

 derlaid with a deposit of lignite coal, which 

 crops out in many places in veins 18 feat 

 thick; at present, from lack of transportation 

 facilities, only these outcroppings are worked, 

 and generally for the supply of the neighbor- 

 hood simply. But along the Northern Pacific 

 Railway at Sims in Morton County, Dickinson 

 in Stark County, and Little Missouri in Billings 

 County, coal-mining is already carried on ex- 

 tensively, and thousands of tons are shipped as 

 far east as Jamestown. It is estimated that 

 during the winter of 1886-'87 10,000 tons were 

 shipped into the city of Bismarck, where it is 

 retailed at $3.50 a ton. 



At Sioux Falls, Dell Rapids, and other points 

 of Southeastern Dakota, along the Big Sioux 

 River, there is an outcropping of the most re- 

 markable deposit of quartzite (granite of jas- 

 per) ever discovered on the continent. Eight 

 hundred car-loads of this granite were shipped 

 last year from Dell Rapids alone. 



In several sections of Dakota great interest 

 is manifested in discoveries of natural gas, and 

 companies have been formed at Blunt, James- 

 town, and Fargo to utilize these discoveries. 



Agriculture. The season of 1886 was not al- 



together favorable to farming interests in the 

 Northwest, although, owing to the opening of 

 new farms, and the increased acreage sown, 

 the yield in every instance was in excess of 

 that of the previous season. 



The season of 1887 was more favorable, and 

 reports from the corn-crop show that it will 

 reach 27,000,000 bushels, an increase over last 

 season's yield of about 70 per cent. The area 

 sown to wheat in 1887 is estimated at 3,899,- 

 389 acres, and the yield will approximate 60,- 

 000,000 bushels, or about one seventh of the 

 entire wheat-crop of the United States last 

 year. 



Stoek-Raising. In 1885 the value of live-stock 

 in the Territory was $40,528,897. At the be- 

 ginning of this year the value had increased to 

 $42,828,338, an amount nearly 50 per cent, 

 greater than the value of the three principal 

 farm products wheat, corn, and oats of the 

 same year. In seven years the value of live- 

 stock in Dakota has increased $36,365,065. 



Militia. The present militia of the Territory, 

 designated as the Dakota National Guard, con- 

 sists of 2 regiments of infantry of 9 companies 

 each, one battalion of mounted infantry of 2 

 companies, and a battery of artillery of 2 guns. 

 The maximum number of enlisted men to each 

 company is 50 men and 3 commissioned officers. 

 The effective strength of this command is 

 1,031 enlisted man and 84 commissioned offi- 

 cers of the field, staff, and line. The general 

 staff consists of 22 commissioned officers ; total 

 number, 1,136. 



Indians. Dakota leads all the States and 

 Territories in the Union (excepting, of course, 

 the Indian Territory) in the numbers of her 

 Indian population and the extent of her reser- 

 vations; nearly one fifth of her entire area is 

 set apart for the use of 30,076 Indians. If the 

 existing reservations were divided equally 

 among them, there would be 892 acres for 

 every man, woman, and child. The Great 

 Sioux Indi;in reservation stretches from Mis- 

 souri river on the east to the Black Hills on 

 the west, from the Nebraska boundary on the 

 south almost to the ciiy of Bismarck, in 

 Northern Dakota, and occupies nearly one 

 fourth of the area of Dakota. It contains 

 22,010,043 acres, on which reside 23,093 In- 

 dians. This area includes a tract known as 

 the Crow Creek and Winnebago reservation, 

 which WHS thrown open to settlers by order of 

 President Arthur. Early this year, however, 

 by advice of the Attorney-General, President 

 Cleveland revoked the order, and directed all 

 white settlers to be driven out. This entailed 

 severe hardship on innocent settlers under the 

 first order, and was not obeyed until the mili- 

 tary were brought into use. 



Division. By a law passed in March, it was 

 provided that the people of the Territory 

 should express their opinion, at an election in 

 November, upon the question whether Dakota 

 should be admitted as two States or as one, 

 the division, if favored, to be on the seventh 



