In 1954, North Dakota and the rest of the nation were in the home stretch toward a safe and effective polio vaccine, but cases crept up that summer and fall, and polio fundraising drives sought money to help patients, who were mostly children. A survey found that Americans feared polio second only to the atomic bomb.
Polio drives took many forms. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe sent a $500 check directly to the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, also known as the March of Dimes, which took a leading role in the fight against polio.
Businesses, Bismarck police, firefighters and civic organizations volunteered as fundraisers, soliciting $527 in dimes from shoppers for the “block of dimes” – a row of dimes that stretched for an entire city block.