<P> The population increase can largely be attributed to the growth of the Northern Pacific Railroad . Settlers who came to the Dakota Territory were from other western territories as well as many from northern and western Europe . These included large numbers of Norwegians, Germans, Swedes, and Canadians . </P> <P> Commerce was originally organized around the fur trade . Furs were carried by steamboat along the rivers to the settlements . Gold was discovered in the Black Hills in 1874 and attracted more settlers, setting off the last Sioux War . The population surge increased the demand for meat spurring expanded cattle ranching on the territory's vast open ranges . With the advent of the railroad agriculture intensified: wheat became the territory's main cash crop . Economic hardship hit the territory in the 1880s due to lower wheat prices and a drought . </P> <P> The territorial capital was Yankton from 1861 until 1883, when it was moved to Bismarck . The Dakota Territory was divided into the states of North Dakota and South Dakota on November 2, 1889 . The admission of two states, as opposed to one, was done for a number of reasons . The two population centers in the territory were in the northeast and southeast corners of the territory, several hundred miles away from each other . On a national level, there was pressure from the Republican Party to admit two states to add to their political power in the Senate . </P> <P> Admission of new western states was a party political battleground with each party looking at how the proposed new states were likely to vote . At the beginning of 1888, the Democrats under president Grover Cleveland proposed that the four territories of Montana, New Mexico, Dakota and Washington should be admitted together . The first two were expected to vote Democratic and the latter two were expected to vote Republican so this was seen as a compromise acceptable to both parties . However, the Republicans won majorities in Congress and the Senate later that year . To head off the possibility that Congress might only admit Republican territories to statehood, the Democrats agreed to a less favorable deal in which Dakota was divided in two and New Mexico was left out altogether . Cleveland signed it into law on February 22, 1889 and the territories could become states in nine months time after that . However, incoming Republican president Benjamin Harrison had a problem with South Dakota; most of the territory was Sioux reservation land and the state would not be viable unless much of this land became available to settlers . </P>

Why did south dakota and north dakota split
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