North Dakota entered the United States as a dry state in 1889, several decades before the 18th Amendment was fully ratified in 1919, making prohibition country-wide. Tales of bootleggers, rum runners, and blind pigs populate the history of the country during these years, including in North Dakota. Yet on this date in 1931, a survey out of Washington D.C. stated that the prohibition situation in North Dakota was "encouraging." The Bismarck Tribune reported that the survey described North Dakota rather blandly as making "wonderful progress under the state and federal prohibition."