Stealing the Capital: The Thirteen-Ballot Coup of 1883

In June of eighteen eighty-three, the Dakota Territorial Legislature met in a special session to vote on a new location for the territorial capital. Yankton had held the honor since eighteen sixty-one, but the Northern Pacific Railroad wanted the capital moved to a city on its main line. The man tasked with making that happen was Alexander McKenzie.

McKenzie had arrived in Bismarck a decade earlier as a railroad construction foreman. He was appointed Burleigh County sheriff in eighteen seventy-four, despite being unable to read or write at the time. He learned both. Within a few years he was the Northern Pacific's chief political operative in Dakota Territory, a figure so dominant that newspapers called him Alexander the Great or simply the Boss of North Dakota.

To move the capital, McKenzie reportedly handed checks of ten thousand dollars each to ten members of the legislature. When the commission convened to vote in June eighteen eighty-three, Bismarck received one vote on the first ballot. It was McKenzie's own.

Thirteen ballots later, Bismarck won. Territorial Governor Nehemiah Ordway, who was also aligned with McKenzie and the Northern Pacific, signed the transfer.

The maneuvering was widely understood to be corrupt. It was also effective. Bismarck became and remained the seat of government, and when North Dakota entered the Union on November second, eighteen eighty-nine, it was named the state capital without a second thought.

McKenzie continued to operate as the state's most powerful unelected figure for years afterward, selecting candidates for governor, senator, and congress. He died a millionaire.