How come, then?
For those of us from the Dakotas, the other question commonly asked is “Why North Dakota and South Dakota, when it should have been East Dakota and West Dakota”. The eastern half (or so) of each state is the populated portion, more fertile, better climate and precipitation, etc. The majority of the eastern Dakota territory was originally Minnesota territory, while the western half was carved from Nebraska territory. The split is essentially the Missouri River, and in the Dakotas it’s commonly referred to as a “East River” versus “West River” and the resultant rivalry.
So if “East Dakota” got the people, what would be in “West Dakota”? Range-land, the Badlands, the Deadwood Gold Rush, Indian reservations, and now the fracking oil fields in North Dakota. Oh yeah, dinosaur bones! West Dakota is people-poor but resource-rich (relatively); just don’t try to farm there.
If there was a single Dakota, the land-size approaches the size of Montana and would be the 4th or 5th largest state in square miles. For farmers and legislators, travelling to a state capital, however centrally-located, would be an extremely long journey. Beyond the two new Republican states, it may have been pressured into splitting due to population desires to make life easier (northern citizens had to travel to extreme southeastern South Dakota to get to Yankton when it was the state capital.)
I don’t have my copy of “How the States Got Their Shapes” right here, so this is from my general (sometimes faulty) memory:
Beyond the initial states-from-colonies phase, there was a general consensus in Congress that new states ought to be sort of kind of the same size. There were exceptions, of course, notably Texas and California, but those were (and are) special cases. Alaska is a special case. Hawaii is trying to cooperate by adding to its land area, but that’s been problematic.
Did it ever even occur to them to give the states two names that were actually different? Or were they thinking, “No one’s going to care, so it doesn’t matter . . .”?
One factor (less important than the politics of it, of course) was the perceived growth in population. It was actually thought back then that these were going to be statewide farming heavens and having one big, populous, state wasn’t thought to be such a good idea.
But many farmers, esp. in the western sections, found they couldn’t make a go of it and the land reverted to rangeland which carries a much smaller population.
After the initial boom, and with little to draw non-farmers, the growth really slowed down (or went negative) once the double whammies of mechanization and the Depression hit.
Oddly, N. Dakota has experienced the greatest percentage population growth of any state since 2011. Maybe they found something else there? 