Divide County, North Dakota: History
During the election on November 8, 1910, the voters of Williams County determined that the county should be divided into a northern and a southern county. The vote was affirmative; the southern portion retained the Williams name; the newly created county was named "Divide", with Crosby as the seat. The county government was effected on December 9 of that year, and the county's boundaries have remained unchanged since that time. Most histories attribute the county name to its "division" from Williams County, though the county's location on the Laurentian Divide, separating runoff waters between Hudson Bay and Gulf of Mexico, may have been involved.
In 1911, Divide County was the site of one of the deadliest tornadoes in North Dakota's recorded history, causing four known deaths.