We’ve visited the ghost town of Lincoln Valley a number of times, and we’ve posted about why it became a ghost town ( a railroad that never arrived, primarily). We’ve heard stories and read newspaper articles about the glory days, and marveled at descriptions of a town that included churches, stores, a gas station, an implement… all the things you would expect in a small rural town. It was hard to imagine, though, considering we visited for the first time in 2004, long after Joe Leintz, the last resident, had gone, and after almost all of Lincoln Valley’s structures had disappeared.
However, using some high-resolution aerial photographs from 1960 and an image from Google Earth, 2017, now we can watch Lincoln Valley become a ghost town.
Click the image to view it full-size. High speed internet recommended.
Below: Use the slider to slide back and forth between 1960 and 2017.
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Read more about Lincoln Valley here.
Original content © Sonic Tremor Media
Ghosts of North Dakota 
Thanks for sharing this thoughtful and rather sad post. Yet, even if sad as a post, it does give further insight into the humanity of all of this time and
transformation.
Perhaps we can share more of these, and my reference in this case is to the Canadian border areas and some of the former towns and places in the Minot-Williston zones.
Again thanks for this fine work about Lincoln Valley and for other work as well.
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My grandmother Gienger had a home there in which I lived with my parents and two little sisters. She also had a farm outside of town. My aunt. Artie Heinle ran the grocery store where I candled eggs. The Ott’s also lived there and were related to my grandma. I have so many memories from that lovely little town.
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Where was the location within the state? Is the Lincoln that lies east and south of Bismarck? I really enjoy the posts here but would like more information on the locations of places featured.
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Lincoln, North Dakota is a town of 3,300 people. Does it sound like the same place to you? There are three links in Troy’s post where you can read more about Lincoln Valley. Did you click any of them? Did you try a Google maps search for Lincoln Valley, ND?
You shouldn’t go through life expecting someone else to do all of the work for you.
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So sorry–my forming cataracts did not allow my eyesight and my computer monitor to distinguish the color variation for the links–I now found two. I don’t view myself as someone who goes through life expecting someone else to do everything for me. I did read the article and the questions but they did not seem to place a location and did not see the links. You sound stressed.
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Dan,
Appears you’re one should be reminded to engage brain before operating keyboard…..
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WOW!! So interesting to see what you guys can do with today’s technology to show the differences between ‘then’ and ‘now’. What really surprises me is the drastic decline of an area/community in such a short period of time. To me, 57 years is not that long of a time. Great work again, guys!
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a farm woman comitted suicide in a farm building east of highway 14 some 3 miles to the southeast of lincoln valley on march 4th, 1993. in the minot daily news obits on march 7th, 1993.
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