When we started this project in 2003, there were plenty of places where we arrived too late; we showed up to discover there wasn’t much left to see in many cases. Now, years later, we’ve been sad to see many of the places where there were things to see… vanish just the same.
If you didn’t see these places already, a visit now would reveal that you’ve arrived too late. Here are 8 more lost North Dakota places.
Continue reading “8 More Lost North Dakota Places”
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”
Norway Lutheran Church is in Nelson County, forty-three miles southeast of Devils Lake, not far from the valley where the Sheyenne River carves its way through the North Dakota landscape. Terry and I were on an adventure to photograph old steel automobile bridges, but as always, we were scanning the countryside for other abandoned things and roadside curiosities to shoot. As we traveled down a gravel road, Terry spotted a weathered steeple sticking up above the treeline, and we made a short detour to this place.
Continue reading “Sunday Morning on the Prairie at Norway Lutheran Church”
Whitman, North Dakota is in Nelson County, about thirty minutes east of Devils Lake. We had Whitman on our list when we visited neighboring Bartlett in 2011, but we had to cut it from our list that day due to time constraints. Continue reading “Whitman, North Dakota: Population 2”
Kloten is in Nelson County, situated about forty miles south of Highway 2, about halfway between Devils Lake and Grand Forks. Accurate population figures are difficult to find. Kloten’s population was reported at a suspiciously round number of 150 for many years, however our census records going back as far as 1960 do not include population reports for Kloten.
Nathan Mastrud contributed these photos of Kloten with the following comments:
Sign leading to Kloten reads “Dead End” but it still carried us through town. Maybe around 6-10 households remain in Kloten. Some of them were hard to tell if the were inhabited or not because most of the the yards were mowed …even the yards of houses that appeared abandoned. Also few of the remaining ones appeared to have a never ending yard sale.
The Kloten grain elevator still looms over the west side of town and a church still remains.
A Fire Hall bell was begging to be rung but a few dogs and the fear of shotguns advised otherwise.
Photos by Nathan Mastrud & Punchgut Studio, original content © copyright Sonic Tremor Media
Pelto, North Dakota is a town that no longer exists, except in the memory of those who grew up here. Located in Nelson County, between Grand Forks and Devils Lake, Pelto is an example of a settlement that has vanished with the railroad transportation culture that birthed it.
Former site of Pelto. Image/Google Earth
In the era of the steam locomotive, there was a town every eight miles along the track, where engines could stop and refill their water tanks. Today, the tracks still pass just north of the site of Pelto, and there’s a nearby farm that looks abandoned, but nearly everything else has vanished.
Nathan Mastrud contributed these photos of Pelto with the following comments:
Pelto is about 42 miles east of Devils lake. The only thing that really remains of the town is a Pelto tombstone. The fields that surround Pelto are slowing filling with water, abandoned farmsites & pelicans. The road to Pelto is Closed and has water up to the shoulder for most of the trip.
The information on the memorial reads:
Pelto Merc Store-Closed 1957
Enterprise Consolidated School-Consolidated 1915-Closed 1969
Pelto Hall
Finnish Lutheran Church Established 1899
A single metal milk container remains standing.
There are only a few skeletons of the foundations buried in deep prairie grass with a couple automobile parts dumped in the swamp.
Photos by Nathan Mastrud and Punchgut Studio
Ghosts of North Dakota 