Not much can be easily found with merely a cursory Google search, but there are those souls on the Internet that love chasing down such details. I was tipped off to this by a blog I frequent, Strange Maps.

Apparently a few disgruntled folks were looking to make a state of their own back in the 1930s, borrowing bits from Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota. “Absaroka” would have been the 49th state, cutting in line ahead of Hawaii and Alaska, a.k.a. “Seward’s Folly”.

The name Absaroka is tied to the Crow Nation, according to this article from the New York Times. (Of course, we know how reliable THEY are…I’d rather trust a blogger!)

Apparently these folks were quite serious, even to the point of printing up state license plates (as pictured above), and even a Ms. Absaroka contest (as pictured below).

I wonder what Montana, Wyoming, and “the other Dakota” would have thought about losing a big chunk of their territory to this new state? I can hardly imagine they’d be thrilled. And of what serious offense would the instigators of this movement be guilty? Not secession, at least on a national level. In any case, it must have fizzled out. The last time I headed south of Belfield, the signs said South Dakota.