On this date in 1913, hundreds of thousands of tons of North Dakota coal was being eaten up by fires in undeveloped mines. Coal is not usually the first thing that comes to mind when people think of North Dakota. But in 1913, a geologist estimated that the state had 32,000 square miles of coal fields containing 500 billion tons of coal. The coal fires had the state legislature alarmed at what they called the “wanton destruction” of a valuable state resource.