Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
2004
Abstract
The "Dakota boom" is a label historians have almost universally adopted to describe the period of settlement in Dakota Territory be, tween the years 1878 and 1887. The term "boom" has been applied to this period largely because of the volume of land claimed and the rapid increase in Dakota Territory's population that occurred during those years. Most accounts of this time period have treated the Dakota boom as a rural phenomenon, and certainly its main manifestation was the rapid claiming of land by immigrant and American would, be farm owners in the plains of Dakota Territory and adjacent areas. Less well known is the impact this rapid, large,scale settling of the land had on the rise and growth of townsites aspiring to become prosperous cities. We know the rural landscape changed as sod houses and dugouts were erected, fields plowed, and trees planted. But what impact did the boom have on the urban landscape?
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly 24:1 (Winter 2004). Copyright © 2004 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.