Unique Bank

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National Bank Notes > North Dakota

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Grand Forks, Second NB, 3504
Fr. 484 $10 1882BB
Grade: PMG VF 25    

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Grand Forks had eight national banks and this was the fourth bank chartered there. It was organized on May 17, 1886 and they printed 600 sheets of Territorials, but none are known. They also issued 799 sheets of statehood Brown Backs. This is the only surviving example known and it came from the estate of Amon Carter. It has great color and excellent pen signatures of the vice president (not legible) and A.W. Clarke, Cashier. What a great rarity to find along the way. Grand Forks is the county seat of Grand Forks County. According to the 2010 census, the city's population was 52,838 making Grand Forks the third-largest city in the state of (after Fargo and Bismarck). Its location at the fork of the Red River and the Red Lake River gives the city its name. Prior to settlement by Europeans or Americans, the area where the city now sits had been an important meeting and trading point for Native Americans. Early French explorers, fur trappers, and traders called the area Les Grandes Fourches meaning "The Grand Forks". By the 1740s, Les Grandes Fourches was an important trading post for French fur trappers. Settlers arrived here in 1868, making Grand Forks the oldest of North Dakota's four major cities, and the second oldest permanent white settlement in the state. The post office was established June 15, 1870 with Sanford C. Cady as Postmaster. It was named county seat when Grand Forks County organized in 1873. It reported a population of 30 in 1870, but had grown to a city of over 7,000 residents by the time North Dakota became a state in 1889. Grand Forks was officially incorporated on February 22, 1881. The city quickly grew after the arrival of the Great Northern Railway in 1880 and the Northern Pacific Railway in 1887. In 1883, the University of North Dakota was established, six years before North Dakota was formally recognized as an independent state born from the Dakota Territory. The State Mill and Elevator was built in 1922, and the North Dakota School for the Blind moved here from Bathgate in 1961. Arthur G. Sorlie (1874-1928), governor of North Dakota 1925-1928, was born here.

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