701 Bison North Dakota; Long Sleeved Tee - Light Heather Gray
$ 27.00
We recently reprinted this shirt design after allowing it to lay fallow for several years. We always liked it a lot but we just weren't feeling it. Since July - September is the mating season for bison, the time is now to re-introduce it.
Most folks know the story but it bears repeating. American bison once roamed the continent by the tens of millions, from Alaska to North Carolina to the Gulf of Mexico. Commercial hunting and slaughter and pure human greed took care of that in the 1800's as American pursued their push to the West. The population of bison was reduced to 701 in 1889, which is how North Dakota got its area code after the telephone was invented in 1876. That is also the year that North Dakota was invented, or became a state, either the 39th or the 40th. Confused yet?
The bison population got so low in those days that in 1913, they introduced one of the most beautiful pieces of coinage in American history, the Buffalo head nickel. By 1938, the population of American bison had recovered significantly so they stopped making the coin, which is a darned shame. My friend Marty took his mom's entire collection of Buffalo head nickels to the store and bought candy with 'em sometime in the 60's. You could hear Mrs. Mahowald yelling eight blocks away.
Like eleven other states with only one area code, North Dakotans strongly identify with theirs. Wear this shirt to the San Diego Zoo and you're likely to have some tourist in an ugly polyester shirt scream "Go Bison" at you. Fortunately, if you buy this shirt, you'll be dressed a whole lot better than that tourist, and you'll have a whole lot more pride involved.
Bison love to mate in open plain areas, which is one reason why they thrive in North Dakota. Plenty of mating areas there. Male and female herds of bison do not mingle until the breeding season, and the dominant males in the herd breed first. The older bison of a generation also have a higher fertility rate than the younger bison males. Male bison play no role in raising the young, which reminds of my friend Chuck from Grand Forks, but we'll leave that story for another time.
A design this good deserves the best possible shirts, so we put it on lightweight Loopback Terry sweatshirts, either hoodie or crew neck style. There's also a Long Sleeve tee in Light Heather Grey. You'll be glad you bought this shirt. It's comfortable and lightweight and attractive. Pretty soon you'll have a whole herd following you around.