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State hub · North Dakota
North Dakota's ghost towns are railroad towns. Between 1878 and 1890 the rail mileage of what became the state grew from about 200 to 2,100 miles, and townsites sprang up every seven to 15 miles along the new lines. In one year of competition between the Great Northern and the Soo Line, nearly 500 miles of new track came with more than 50 new townsites, many of them never settled. Speculators platted others, like Hudson in Dickey County, which lasted less than three years before its buildings were dragged across the frozen James River to Oakes in 1886 and 1887.
The towns emptied as farms got bigger and fewer. The Depression and the Dust Bowl droughts pushed families off the land, mechanization took the rest, and railroads straightened their lines or stopped the steam-era water stops that had kept small depots open. Two floods finished the job in places: Lake Sakakawea, behind Garrison Dam, drowned Sanish, Elbowoods and other Fort Berthold communities in 1953 and 1954, and Devils Lake rose more than 26 feet after 1993 and took much of Churchs Ferry.
The sites are spread across 37 of the state's 53 counties, thickest along the Great Northern main line west of Minot and in Grant and Morton counties southwest of Bismarck. What survives is usually a church, a grain elevator, a cemetery and a farmyard on the old plat. Sims still holds services in its Lutheran church, and Fort Buford is a state historic site.
Town guides
Our complete guides, most-read first: history, what's left, current access, photos, maps and directions.
GuideSlope County
A railroad town on the Little Missouri that boomed to 1,318 people by 1920 and had 101 at the 2020 census. Its 1914 theater still stands among…
McLean County
For about 60 years Elbowoods was the main community of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara, with the agency, a school and a hospital in a wooded bend of…
GuideMcKenzie County
The first seat of McKenzie County, passed over by the railroad and replaced by Watford City in 1941. Its small stone jail still stands, the place a…
GuideMountrail County
A Soo Line town of 1915 on the east bank of the Missouri, dissolved in 1953 as Garrison Dam's reservoir began to fill. Its foundations lie under…
GuideMountrail County
A railroad village of about 400 people that Garrison Dam would have left on a small peninsula. It was dissolved in 1953 and its people moved to New…
GuideMountrail County
A railroad town of 1900 on the Great Northern main line that never had more than 140 people. It gave up its charter in 1976, lost its last church to…
GuideBottineau County
Two railroads crossed here, and in 1906 Omemee had 650 people, a bank, a hotel, an opera house and a newspaper. The boom never came. By about 1990…
GuideRamsey County
A town of 457 people in 1910 that the rising water of Devils Lake emptied. After a federal buyout around 2000 most houses were torn down or moved…
GuideBurleigh County
A land company's prairie town on a Northern Pacific branch, home to 150 people in 1920 and to almost no one since the 1980s. Its white wooden church…
GuideWells County
Hamberg had 187 people in 1930 and 11 in 2020. In 2008 its two-storey school, false-fronted stores and steepled church still lined quiet dirt…
GuideWilliams County
A railroad hamlet on the Great Northern line near the old army post of Fort Buford. It had a post office from 1897 to 1975 and 20 people in 1940.…
GuideLaMoure County
Alfred once had a school, a bar, a blacksmith and a grocery. About ten people live there now, among empty stores and houses half hidden by trees, a…
Oliver County
A county seat in the 1880s, Sanger was empty by 1985. Ghosts of North Dakota photographed its vacant houses in 2004, then came back in 2013 to find…
GuideRolette County
Laid out in 1905 and named for the polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen, this little town lost its post office in 1982 and its last people by the 1990s. A…
GuideDickey County
Named from a novel and built by the railroad in 1891, Merricourt peaked at 153 people in 1940. By its centennial two were left. Its bank, its WPA…
Watch
Prairie churches, railroad towns, and a surviving theatre. Explore the history, maps and access notes before you go.
Where to start
Open attractions, living towns and true ruins, with their current status.
Burleigh County
Townsite of 1906, reached by the Northern Pacific's Pingree to Wilton branch in 1910, never more than about 150 people. The post office and store closed in 1996. A video of a 2024 visit, posted in January 2026, shows the collapsing church, two wooden elevators and a few other buildings, with private land on both sides of the road, so look from the road.
Morton County
Coal and brick town of 1883 on the Northern Pacific that grew to more than 1,000 people. The 1884 parsonage and the Scandinavian Lutheran Church survive; the congregation still meets every other Sunday.
Williams County
Hamlet beside Fort Buford, the Army post of 1866 to 1895 where Sitting Bull surrendered in 1881. The fort's officers' quarters and stone powder magazine are open daily May through September; the grounds are open all year.
Slope County
Milwaukee Road town of 1907 that counted 1,318 people in 1920 and 101 in 2020. The 1914 Mystic Theatre, on the National Register since 1977, is kept by the Marmarth Historical Society.
Slope County
Slope County seat, founded in 1910 at the planned end of a Milwaukee Road branch that never arrived. 24 people at the 2020 census make it one of the smallest county seats in the country.
Mountrail County
Branch-line town of 1915 that peaked near 700 people, was declared abandoned in April 1953 and flooded by Garrison Dam. KFYR-TV reported its remains showing at low water beside the Four Bears Bridge on July 15, 2026; shore access not verified. A small New Sanish sits on the shore above.
Ramsey County
Town of 457 people in 1910 near Devils Lake. The rising lake forced a government buyout of much of the town; nine people remained in 2020 and the city dissolved itself in 2022.
Williams County
Great Northern siding of 1906 whose post office closed in 1965. The school was moved out in 2010 and the church razed in 2015, leaving a garage and collapsed houses beside the BNSF main line. We found no later report and no source on access.
Bottineau County
Junction of the Great Northern and the Soo Line that reached about 650 people in 1906 and three by 1990. Ghosts of North Dakota photographed a few ruins and stored farm equipment there in April 2017, and in a video posted in October 2024 the old Main Street is a stubble field with hardly a foundation left. Its bell hangs at the county museum in Bottineau.
Near a city
Driving distance and time from downtown, routed over OpenStreetMap roads. Dirt roads are usually slower than the estimate.
Directory
Every town, camp and settlement in our North Dakota index, with its county. A ◦ marks sites already on the map.
No sites match. Try fewer letters or another county.
Plan a trip
Winter here closes roads outright. On December 18, 2025 the state closed I-29 between Fargo and Grand Forks for a blizzard and put much of eastern North Dakota under a No Travel Advisory, warning that roads could become blocked or impassable. Check 511 or the ND Roads map at travel.dot.nd.gov before any winter trip. Fort Buford's buildings are open daily only from May 1 to September 30; the grounds stay open all year.
Many townsites are off the highways, and gravel goes soft in spring. In spring 2020 Nelson County closed 30 miles of gravel roads after snowmelt made them impassable. Carry a full tank, an offline map and a shovel, and turn back rather than rut a wet road; Bucyrus, a city in Adams County, has no paved streets at all.
North Dakota land is open to entry unless it is posted, and posting can now be electronic as well as by sign. Senate Bill 2144, signed in April 2021, also closes any land inside a well-maintained fence to everyone except lawful hunters and anglers. About 12 million acres were posted electronically in 2024; the Game and Fish Department's PLOTS map shows them. Many old townsites are now someone's farmyard, so ask at the house first. Trespass can be charged as anything from a noncriminal offense to a class A misdemeanor.
Century Code chapter 55-03 requires a permit from the State Historical Society to investigate, excavate or record cultural resources on state land, including state historic sites like Fort Buford, Fort Rice and the Hudson townsite, and to excavate them on private land. Breaking it is a class A misdemeanor and everything found is forfeited. The chapter counts burial mounds and unregistered graves among the cultural resources it protects.
FAQ
There is no official count. Wikipedia's list runs to about 70 places. Our index lists 88 sites in 37 counties; 65 of them have coordinates on our map. Mountrail and Grant counties lead with five each.
Sims, under an hour west of Bismarck, has the most to see: a restored 1884 parsonage and a church of 1896 to 1900 that still holds services, open to visitors by appointment. Arena, northeast of Bismarck, still had its collapsing church, two wooden elevators and a few other buildings in a video of a 2024 visit, posted in January 2026. For a drowned town, watch for Sanish's foundations in Lake Sakakawea when the water is low.
Saint Anthony, in Morton County south of Mandan, is about half an hour away, and Breien about 50 minutes. Sims is just under an hour west along I-94, Sanger, Fallon and Arena about an hour each, and Leith about an hour and a half. These are routed estimates, and gravel is slower than the map says.
Because railroads built them faster than farms could fill them. Townsites were platted every seven to 15 miles along new lines, and one year of rivalry between the Great Northern and the Soo Line produced more than 50, many of them never settled. The survivors lost people to drought and the Depression, then to bigger farms and better highways. Garrison Dam and Devils Lake flooded others.
Many are. Places like Temvik and Verendrye are now farms. Unposted land is open to walk, but fenced land is not, and posting can be electronic, so check the Game and Fish posting map and ask the landowner. Fort Buford, Fort Rice and the Hudson townsite are state historic sites, and Old Sanish lies under a federal reservoir inside the Fort Berthold Reservation.
Abandoned