absaroka (11. 772)

With the notable exceptions of Alaska and Hawaii and those that successfully petitioned for partition from larger territories like Kentucky and West Virginia and Vermont—Maine was created from the Massachusetts exclave district of the same name that existed until the War of 1812 when pro-British sentiments prompted the separatist movement—every state in the union has had its share of break-away polities, but none as we learn courtesy of Strange Company had consisted of counties of three different states proposing to reincorporate like the above coalition, named after an endonym of the Crow people (“children of the large-beaked bird) though no one consulted the indigenous population despite being formed in large part from reservation land. The movement for Absaroka—whose seriousness is disputed as either an earnest attempt at secession or a publicity stunt that achieved their desired goal—began in the mid 1930s during the Depression and attendant dust-bowls when rural residents far removed from their respective capitals protested that their governments were not doing enough to extend NewDeal federal aid to farmers and ranchers. Distant residents of Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota did not feel that Helena, Cheyenne and Pierre had their best interests in mind. The street commissioner of the city and county of Sheridan Wyoming, halfway between Yellowstone Park and Mount Rushmore (further encompassing the Bighorn and Great Teton ranges and Devil’s Tower and thus the motto the Nation’s Playground) spearheaded the drive for independence and recognition, later proclaiming himself governor of the unrecognised forty-ninth state in 1939, issuing their own license plates, choosing a Miss Absaroka in a beauty pageant and inviting the king of Norway, Haarkon VII, to visit as part of his tour of the region to signal formal and diplomatic recognition and even debate in congress about the order of accession and wanting Hawaii to be admitted first. Though abandoned with the outbreak of World War II, the movement achieved its goal of having state governments responsive to their farthest reaches.