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National Bank Notes > North Dakota

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Grand Forks, First NB, W2570
Fr. 563 $50 1882DB
Grade: PMG VF 30    

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This is the rarest North Dakota note that seems to have survived in unusual numbers. The bank printed 900 sheets with one $50 and one $100, and then 961 more with three $50s and one $100; there are just eight recorded survivors. This note is among the better grade examples. Once graded AU but now called VF 30 and I'm sure both felt correct when it was graded. It has been trimmed a bit tight along the top right - a poor cut. Excellent pen signatures of A.I. Hunter, President and R.J. Carley, Cashier. 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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