Admission of North and South Dakota to the Union

The Dakota Territory was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1861, until 1889 when the final extent of the reduced territory was split and admitted to the Union as the states of North and South Dakota. On November 2, 1889, President Benjamin Harrison was about to sign the proclamations admitting both North and South Dakota as the 39th and 40th states. He had each document placed inside identical newspapers; he then shuffled them back and forth until no one could tell which document was which state. Just enough of the documents were left exposed for the Harrison to sign. He then shuffled the papers again before the documents were removed. Because of this shell game, no one will ever know which of the Dakotas was actually the 39th or 40th state. The admission of two states, as opposed to one, was done for a number of reasons. The two population centers in the territory were in the northeast and southeast corners of the territory, several hundred miles away from each other. On a national level, there was pressure from the Republican Party to admit two states to add to their political power in the Senate. A century later, with the populations of the two states at low levels, there were discussions of reuniting them as "Dakota", but this has never been seriously considered.