Welcome to Stark County ND History and Genealogy Presented by North Dakota Genealogy Trails a part of Genealogy Trails Stark County was created February 10, 1879 as a county within Dakota Territory from parts of Howard County and Williams County. The county organized on May 25, 1883, and became a county in the state of North Dakota on November 2, 1889. In 1891, the North Dakota Legislature enacted legislation annexing Dunn County, Hettinger County, and parts of Billings, Bowman, McKenzie, Wallace, and Willliams Counties into Stark. However, the act was vetoed by Governor Eli C. D. Shortridge. Additional annexation legislation was enacted in 1895, affecting the boundaries of Stark, Billings, and Mercer Counties, subject to approval by the counties' voters.The annexation went into effect November 3, 1986, but Wilson L. Richards, a local cattle rancher, sued to overturn the annexation because he and other landowners in the area were now subject to taxation by Stark County. The case went to the North Dakota Supreme Court, which ruled the law unconstitutional on May 18, 1899.The annexation remained in effect, however, due to a replacement law approved by the legislature March 9, 1899 in anticipation of the court's decision. This second annexation law was overturned by the North Dakota Supreme Court in 1901 because the annexation was not referred to the voters of the affected counties as required by the North Dakota Constitution.This lawsuit involved a landowner, Henry Schaffner, whose property in Williams County was added to neighboring Mercer County by the 1899 law. Schaffner objected when the Mercer County sheriff seized and attempted to sell Schaffner's property to collect taxes the county claimed Schaffner owned. The court ruled that the seizure was illegal, since the 1895 ruling meant Schaffner's property was outside of Mercer County's jurisdiction. The Legislature passed a third annexation law in 1903, this time submitting it to the voters Stark County and the unorganized counties of Dunn and Hettinger for approval. The annexation was approved by 502 votes in Stark County and 65 votes in Hettinger County, but it failed by 1 vote in Dunn County.Stark County claimed the annexation vote valid, since the legislation required a majority if the aggregate votes cast. However, the North Dakota Constitution required a majority vote in each affected county subject to annexation, so the state of North Dakota sued stark county on the grounds that the enabling legislation was unconstitutional and that the "no" vote in Dunn County meant the annexation failed. The North Dakota Supreme Court ruled the 1903 law unconstitutional in 1905 Stark County received a minor boundary change in 1908 when Dunn County was formally organized. -- Source:  Wikipedia.com Volunteers Dedicated to Free Genealogy This Site is Available for Adoption Our goal is to help you track your ancestors through time by transcribing genealogical and historical data for the free use of all researchers. We're looking for folks who share our dedication to putting data online and are interested in helping this project be as successful as it can be. If you are interested in joining Genealogy Trails, view our Volunteer Page for further information and then contact Kim. (Enough knowledge to make a basic webpage and a desire to transcribe data is required) We regret that we are unable to perform personal research for folks. All data we come across will be added to this site. We thank you for visiting and hope you'll come back again to view the updates we make to this site. If you would like to be kept informed of our state and county website updates, subscribe to any or all of our mailing lists North Dakota is covered under our "Upper Midwest" States mailing list. Online Data Biographies Births Cemeteries Census Wills/Legal Records County History Court Records Deaths Newspapers Obituaries Marriages Military Website Updates:  Newspaper articles - contributed by Nancy Piper Cities Note: all incorporated communities in North Dakota are called "cities" regardless of their size. Antelope Belfield Daglum Dickinson Eland Gaylord Gladstone Lefor Richardton Schefield South Heart Taylor Zenith Surrounding Counties Billings County (west) Mercer County (northeast) Hettinger County (south) Dunn County (north) Morton County (east) Grant County (southeast) Slope County (southwest) Back to North Dakota Genealogy Trails Back to Genealogy Trails Copyright © Genealogy Trails All data on this website is Copyright by Genealogy Trails with full rights reserved for original submitters.