It was November 7th, 2014 and it was two minutes until winter in Josephine, North Dakota when we briefly braved forty mile per hour winds to get the photos you see here.

I consulted Douglas Wick’s North Dakota Place Names book, which says Josephine, North Dakota was founded in 1901 on the site of an earlier pioneer settlement known as Genin. Josephine was named for Josephine Lindstrom Stickelberger, one of North Dakota’s first female physicians.

It had a population of 30 once, but today, Josephine is a ghost town with only two elevators and the accompanying office remaining on site.

We returned to Josephine in 2017 and got some photos from much closer. See them here.

Photos by Troy Larson and Terry Hinnenkamp, copyright © 2017 Sonic Tremor Media