James W. (James William) Foley

Born in St. Louis in 1874, Foley moved with his family to North Dakota, where he grew up around Fort Abraham Lincoln, Bismarck, and Medora. He graduated from Bismarck High School at fourteen, briefly attended the University of South Dakota, taught in Medora, and later joined the staff of the Bismarck Tribune as a reporter and editor. His early life in the Badlands also brought him into contact with the Marquis de Mores and Theodore Roosevelt.

Foley published his first book, A Little Book of Prairie Breezes, in 1902 and went on to produce more than a dozen volumes of poetry, including Tales of the Trail, Boys and Girls, and The Voices of Song. His cheerful, plainspoken poems appeared in publications such as the New York Times and Saturday Evening Post. Often recognized as North Dakota’s unofficial poet laureate, he wrote the “North Dakota Hymn,” first performed in 1927 and adopted as the state song in 1947. He died in 1939.