Bank of North Dakota

Through the first hundred years of the Bank’s existence, a fascinating pattern developed. The Bank raised its profile and took significant risks to help North Dakota through difficult times, then slipped below the radar when conditions improved, both because its job was temporarily done and to avoid calling undo attention to itself. Periods of progressivism tended to alternate with periods of retrenchment and retraction. After periods of intense activity, the Bank tended to embrace the least “exposed” and controversial profile, quietly doing its core work and accumulating capital and credibility, until the next time it was needed to prop up the state.