The 100th Meridian long held major significance in the western economy because for two generations insurance companies and other worldwide lending agencies, by agreed policy, would not lend west of that line after a geographer labeled it the east edge of the Great American Desert, despite neither the geographer nor the companies having gone west of 100 degrees. That geographically limited and unrealistic loan policy helped force South Dakota into the farm loan business, a costly experience that illustrated why a state should not be in the loaning business, although South Dakota paid all its debts in full. What had been misnamed desert later produced more than a quarter of America's new animal wealth alone, and the 100th Meridian became another bad memory.