History of Bismarck, North Dakota History of Bismarck, North Dakota Bismarck is the capital of the state of North Dakota, the county seat of Burleigh County, and the second most populous city in North Dakota after Fargo. The city was formed in 1872 as "Edwinton" after Edwin Ferry Johnson, a chief engineer for the Northern Pacific Railway company, when the railroad reached the eastern banks of the Missouri River. The name was changed less than one year later, honoring German chancellor Otto von Bismarck, in an effort to attract German immigrants. The discovery of gold in the nearby Black Hills in 1874 was the first
Brisbane, North Dakota Brisbane, North Dakota Brisbane is a ghost town in what was then Morton County but today is Grant County in the U.S. state of North Dakota. A 1910 application for a new post office at Brisbane from the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C. locates Brisbane in section 9 of Township 133 north, Range 86 west. (To understand what the terms "township" and "range", please see the article Township.) An article in the Leith, North Dakota, Index newspaper dated March 1, 1913 states that Brisbane had been established 2 years earlier and that a general store, a hardware