North Dakota’s longest State Highway is Highway 200, and it stretches over 400 miles from the Red River near Halstad, Minnesota to the Montana border at Fairview. As we’ve been exploring North Dakota’s vanishing places since 2003, it’s a highway we’ve found ourselves on again and again, and we’re due to show appreciation for a road that will take you to so many amazing places.
Continue reading “Roadtrip: Ghosts Towns and Vanishing Places along State Highway 200”
This is part two in our series about historic North Dakota automobile bridges. In part one, we focused on Sheyenne River crossings in southeast North Dakota. This time, we’ve photographed historic steel bridges in East-Central North Dakota, on the Sheyenne, Goose, and James Rivers.
Some of these bridges are closed and abandoned, others are still in use, and one has been restored, but they will all share the same fate without human intervention, so we’ve chosen to document them here.
Continue reading “More Historic Automobile Bridges”
We spotted this farm on the way to Sheyenne River Bridge and made a point to circle back when we were done there. It is at coordinates 47.269772,-98.038936, just east of the near-ghost town of Karnak, North Dakota, in Griggs County. Continue reading “Abandoned Karnak Farm”
Someone suggested this place to us last fall, we waited all winter to visit, and it was worth the wait. Ringsaker Lutheran Church and School are about seven and half miles north of Cooperstown, and they’re rich in history dating back to what is claimed to be the first Christian religious service in Griggs County, in 1879 or 1880.
Continue reading “Ringsaker Lutheran and Romness Bridge”This is the Sheyenne River Bridge, a railroad trestle at the north end of Lake Ashtabula, in the marshy transition between the lake and the Sheyenne River. Built in 1912, it is 2,736 feet long, making it a little shorter than High Line Bridge in Valley City and a little longer than the Gassman Coulee Trestle in Minot. Railroad bridges played such a crucial role in the settlement of our state that we’ve chosen to occasionally feature some of them here, even if they’re not abandoned. Continue reading “Sheyenne River Bridge”
As we drove north along County Road 19 about four miles south of Cooperstown, I was blabbing on about something when Terry suddenly pointed. “What’s that?”
Continue reading “Shepard View, 1905”
Griggs County
Vacant as of 10/04
Mose, North Dakota is a true ghost town in Griggs County, about forty miles southeast of Devils Lake. It was also known as Florence and Lewis prior to 1904. On Halloween 1904, it was renamed Mose in honor of a local lumberyard employee. It’s peak population is said to have been 25.
Mose was particularly hard hit by a tornado, hence the sign at the entrance to the town. Most of the townsite is on private property which is well posted. The old home shown here appears to be the only original structure remaining on the town site.
Our expedition to Mose ended up being a little more eventful than we would have liked. Due to our poor planning, we found ourselves in the middle of an abandoned town during opening weekend of deer hunting season. And with no blaze orange to alert the hunters to our presence. After hearing several rifle shots in the distance, Terry resorted to using the rainbow umbrella from his trunk to make himself visible to any prospective hunter who might think he was venison.
To further put a scare into us, on our way out of Mose, a carload of hunters zoomed off the shoulder of the road right into our path without looking. It took a little Hollywood stunt driving to avoid a bad accident.
Ghost town hunting during deer hunting season is bad.
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Photos by Troy Larson and Terry Hinnenkamp, copyright Sonic Tremor Media LLC
Ghosts of North Dakota 