Along the rugged 360-mile border between North Dakota and South Dakota there once stood 720 quartzite markers, cut from the quarries near Sioux Falls and placed there in 1891 and 1892 by United States surveyor Charles H. Bates and his crew. In "The Quartzite Border," Dr. Gordon L. Iseminger of the University of North Dakota recounts, for the first time, the intriguing story behind the surveying and marking of one of the nation's longest state borders.

Based on the author's exhaustive research of Bates' survey notes and his correspondence with the Interior Department and the General Land Office, "The Quartzite Border" reveals the political machinations of U.S. Senator Richard F. Pettigrew, who attempted to prevent Bates from securing the contract to make the survey, and afterwards sought to discredit his work. Using photographs, maps, and drawings, Dr. Iseminger provides the historical context of the survey, giving special attention to the struggle for statehood, the science of surveying, the stone industry in Sioux Falls, steamboating on the Missouri River, and life in the small towns that bordered the seventh standard parallel two years after statehood.