Arena in 1992
Burleigh County
Abandoned as of 2004
Arena was only the second true ghost town we ever visited, back in 2004. At that time, the school had already been torn down and we were never able to locate some large photos of it, until now.
Thanks to these photos contributed by Dale Fisher, we can now see Arena as it looked in 1992. There are a few interesting comparisons to be made with our photos from 2004:
In the photo above, we can see a small home which was not standing when we visited in 2004. The church still stands, as does the yellow house behind the two pine trees. But there was no trace of the little house in between. On the left side, the light brown structure (just above the car) was also gone by the time of our visit. And at the far left, partially cut off, is the little white building which we photographed and also still stands.
The church seems to be in much better shape in the photo above as well. The paint is not quite as weathered, and the roof seems to be in better shape too. This photo was taken from the vantage point of the swings near the school. On the far right, you can see the support post for the swing set.
This was the Arena school — a place we really regret missing out on. You can see the school looks remarkably better in this 1992 image as versus the image contributed by Stephen Berg in our Arena gallery… the windows are still intact in this image, and the structure just looks more stable. Someone did a real number on this school in the twelve years between ’92 and ’04.
A question we’d still like to answer… what year did the last full-time resident move out of Arena?
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The last known full time resident that I am aware of was Mike Forth. He rented the yellow house from my family. However, he only lived there for a short time, possibly one year. Prior to him renting the home, nobody had lived there for quite a while. I believe it was a family by the name of Deere? I can check with my grandmother, who would be sure to know. She was the owner of the post office/general store until it was robbed and burnt down.
Hey im doing stuff for a North Dakota studies class would you possibly have any more information or events that happened while arena was still a town
In 1992 my wife and I stumbled onto Arena while returning to southeast Oklahoma from a Canadian fishing trip and, as best I remember, there were no obvious signs (cars, dogs, children’s toys, mown grass, etc.) of anyone living in any of the buildings. My wife, Julie Fisher, deserves the credit for the photographs since she took them. She died last December and I happened upon the photographs while going through some things. I Googled Arena and got to your site and saw your request for photographs.
Oklahoma’s state song has a line ‘while the wind goes sweeping down the plains.’ The day we stopped in Arena the wind was blowing so hard that we had to exit the car on the leeward side. You can see the grass laying in the photographs especially in the town panorama.