Historedia
Episode 2 of 2

Dakota Territory Division Provisions

When
February 22, 1889
Where
Dakota Territory
Part of
Cleveland signs the Enabling Act admitting four northwestern states

The Enabling Act of 1889 provided for Dakota Territory's split along the seventh standard parallel and a joint border convention in Bismarck.

Rather than effecting the division on a separately dated occasion, the Enabling Act of 1889, enacted February 22, 1889, contained provisions governing the split: the Territory of Dakota was to be divided on the seventh standard parallel produced due west to the western boundary. The act further directed that North and South Dakota representatives assemble at a joint convention in Bismarck, North Dakota, to decide the borderline between the two states; the evidence supplies no date for that convention.

Sources

  1. Enabling Act of 1889 Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-28

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.