In towns far from any city, fictional manufacturers build loaders, trailers and farm equipment for a continent, proving that the plains make as well as grow.

Founded in a populist era to keep prairie capital on the prairie, the nation's only state-owned bank remains a distinctive fixture of the region's financial life.

Building on its aviation roots, the Grand Forks region has become a national center for unmanned aircraft, where fictional firms test drones over the open plains for farm and industry.

Once-quiet brick warehouses along Fargo's Broadway now house software firms, coworking lofts and cafés, as the city's downtown reinvents itself as the plains' technology quarter.