History of Bismarck, North Dakota Dakota. Some Bismarck citizens raided Jamestown for the state records. After the state records were back in Bismarck, construction of the capitol was completed in 1884, and talk of moving the capital city of North Dakota to Jamestown stopped. The first hospital for the Dakota Territory, Saint Alexius, was founded in 1885. Like most of the country, the 1890s were hard times for North Dakota. The Panic of 1893 was the nation's worst economic hardship to that point, and North Dakota's strong agriculture-based economy was directly affected. To make things worse, Bismarck was struck by a severe fire in August
North Dakota Secretary of State University. From the creation of the office with the state's constitution in 1889, to 2015 there had been 14 Secretaries of State, the least number among any of the state offices created in that year. This is attributed to the 34-year tenure of Ben Meier, which was the longest of any state-level Secretary of State in the US. the office had been held by the North Dakota Republican Party at all times except the period 1989 to 1992, when the state's Democratic Party was in office. The Secretary of State originally served a two-year term, but this was extended to