Montana

Population: 1 million 2015 Gross state Product: $46 billion (3.5% Growth) GSP Per capita: $44,468 (ranks no. 39 nationwide) richest: dennis washington $5.9 billion

“YOU’VE REALLY GOTTA dig hard to find something,” says Dennis Washington. In this case the mining magnate, 82, doesn’t mean pulling copper out of the ground but rather finding his next company to buy. He issues this lament after having failed to unearth his latest quarry: An unsolicited $1.1 billion offer for Canada-based Dominion Diamonds in February ended with Washington pulling it back a month later after the company insisted on a public bidding process. No sweat, he says. “We’re not sore losers.”

Why would you be when you already possess, as Washington puts it, a “good old American success story”? He survived childhood polio and bounced around the West Coast before becoming a heavy-crane operator in Alaska and then starting Washington Cos. in 1964. The avid yachtsman owns four boats, including a $225 million megayacht.