---

National Bank Notes > North Dakota

---

---

Dickinson, Dakota NB, W7663
Fr. 598 $5 1902PB
Grade: PMG Ch. AU 58 EPQ    

---

This is the second of four national banks chartered in this Stark County community. The bank was organized on March 4, 1905 and printed 14,194 sheets before the bank went into receivership on February 7, 1924. This note is new to the census but I seem to remember this note being a part of an UNC collection of Blue Seals, although I cannot recall who built it. The purple signatures of Sylvanus M. Ferris, President and Victor William Maser, Cashier are well stamped. Few North Dakota notes this nice are known. Sylvanus Meyers Ferris was born December 21, 1858, in New Brunswick, Canada. He remained in Canada until he moved to Dakota Territory in June, 1881 and became identi ed with the cattle business. He ran the Maltese Cross and Elkhorn ranches, the ranches with which President Roosevelt was connected. In 1898 Mr. Ferris bought out Mr. Roosevelt s interests and conducted them for some eight years, selling out in 1906. Mr. Ferris held numerous public positions, having been county commissioner of Billings county, also clerk of court, county treasurer and county auditor, resigning from the latter place to accept the position of register of the Dickinson land office. He was also the rst vice president of the Dakota National Bank. Dickinson is the county seat of Stark County in the Heart River valley. The population was 17,787 at the 2010 census. This site was named Pleasant Valley Siding in 1880, but was renamed in 1881 for Wells Stoughton Dickinson (1828-1892), a land agent and politician from Malone, New York, who had visited here 1880. (His brother, Horace L. Dickinson, lived onsite to oversee its development.) The post office was established October 6, 1881 with F. H. Longley as Postmaster. It became the county seat in 1883, incorporated as a village in 1899, and became a city in 1900. Dickinson is centrally located in southwestern North Dakota, the midpoint between Fargo, North Dakota and Billings, Montana. Due to this strategic location, and the resulting regional social and economic influence, it was known for decades by the nickname Queen City of the Prairies. Reference to this nickname was used as early as 1906.

---