Suppose the Dakota Territory hadn't been divided?

The Dakota territory accounted for much of the northern reaches of the Louisiana Purchase. Organized as a territory in 1861, it ceded western parts to what are now Montana and Wyoming, leaving the area now occupied by North and South Dakota in the 1880s as a single territory. It was divided yielding two states, both admitted in the same bill that admitted Montana and Washington in 1889.

Suppose it hadn't been divided, and there were a single state known as Dakota? Assuming all else goes approximately as it had:
  • It would have 149, 084 square miles, making it the fourth largest in area behind only Alaska, Texas, and California.
  • It would be home to ~1.61 million people, ranking it 41st, just behind Idaho and just ahead of Hawaii.
  • Probably Sioux Falls would be the largest city.
  • There would have been a flag that may have looked like this from 1912 until 1959:
upload_2017-8-7_20-35-14.png

That's right: 47 stars. What else might have changed?
 
Where is the capital? Pierre or Bismarck?

less electoral votes for Republicans. Would this have any effect on elections? Bush would still beat Gore in 2000.
 
For some godforsaken reason, I feel like it'd be somewhat more a swing state than the two Dakotas are individually.
You might be on to something. Two generations ago, the two states were decidedly different politically. As John Gunther noted in the chapter titled "The Miraculous Dakotas", South thinks that North is full of Bolsheviks, while North thinks that South is a preserve for all people to the right of [Herbert] Hoover.
 
Where is the capital? Pierre or Bismarck?

less electoral votes for Republicans. Would this have any effect on elections? Bush would still beat Gore in 2000.
Maybe neither: for a period of time, Yankton was the capital of the undivided territory.
 
It's pretty far south, surely they'd find somewhere central.

In an unpublished TL of mine, I made OTL Linton, ND, the capital of a unified Dakota. It's location would be fairly central (at least, more so than Yankton or either of the OTL state capitals).
 
Where is the capital? Pierre or Bismarck?

less electoral votes for Republicans. Would this have any effect on elections? Bush would still beat Gore in 2000.

Bismarck. The Territorial Capital had already been moved to Bismarck (from Yankton) before the split. No reason to think a whole new capital would be chosen for the state.
 
Personally, I'd be interested in the railroad placement. One of the reasons you see parallel lines was because of the two states. With only a single state (and assuming that the grain manufacturing industry of the Twin Cities remains as powerful of a special interest as it was in OTL) it would make sense for there to be a single hub to collect the grain and ship it out to Minneapolis and Saint Paul.

With that in mind, I think Fargo (which already boasted at least two separate lines converging in OTL) might actually become the main rail hub in the state of Dakota. This will have some interesting on the development of Fargo itself as well as the state.

I'd also be interested in the development of the NPL - in OTL it had difficulty spreading in South Dakota. In the ATL, it might have a bit more influence in the southern parts of Dakota.
 
Well, one reason it might occur is due to, for whatever reason, the Federal government not being able to purchase or acquire most of the Sioux territory; it encompassed most of what became South Dakota.

Either the Feds couldn't get the territory... or the timeline comes from one where the US and the natives have better relations (no expulsions, Indian territory, etc). If it's the former, i expect there to be some blowback... Maybe Oklahoma is split in two later rather than being kept as a single unit?
 
It's pretty far south, surely they'd find somewhere central.

As I said, the capitol had already been moved to Bismarck prior to the split and I see no reason that it wouldn't be maintained as the capitol after statehood is granted. Bismarck actually was more centrally located, when one looks at the settlement patterns of the time (much of South Dakota was sparsely populated and belonged to the Sioux).
 
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