Abandoned Towns
Aerial view of farm fields around the Omemee townsite, with a rail line crossing them diagonally

Railroad and road town · Farm and ranch town

Omemee

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 three people were left, and today the townsite is farmland with traces of pavement and a few foundations.

48°42′23″N 100°21′18″W · ≈1,510 ft

Aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain). See the photographs in the gallery below.

Farmland; access unclear

On an Easter 2017 visit, Ghosts of North Dakota found a farmer using the townsite to store equipment and straw bales, and warned of open holes in the ground. A video posted October 26, 2024 shows the old Main Street lots as farm field, dug by a collector who says he had permission. No source we found says who owns the land or whether visitors may walk it. Look from the road unless you have permission.

Overview

The junction that never became a city

The Omemee town bell under a sign reading "1890–1978, Double Clapper", outside the county museum in Bottineau, June 2013
The Omemee town bell under a sign reading "1890–1978, Double Clapper", outside the county museum in Bottineau, June 2013 · Photo: Bert Garwood, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Omemee began in 1887 in eastern Bottineau County, named by its first postmaster for his hometown in Ontario. In 1903 the town moved a short way to sit where the Soo Line and the Great Northern crossed, and for a few years people expected a city. A reader of Ghosts of North Dakota wrote that it was supposed to become the county seat. By 1906 it claimed 650 people, the fourth-largest town in the county, with grain elevators, a bank, a blacksmith, a hotel, a restaurant, an opera house and its own newspaper, the Omemee Herald.

It never grew past that. A 1906 review by the state Department of Agriculture blamed Bottineau, a few miles north, and the lack of a townsite company to promote the place. Farmers already did their trading in Bottineau and Willow City. The census counted 332 people in 1910 and fewer nearly every decade after: 60 by 1950, 11 by 1960 and 5 by 1970. Most residents moved their houses to Bottineau. The post office closed in 1967, and when Omemee disincorporated about 1990 it had three people. Accounts of the end differ. One says the last resident left in the 1980s, and Wikipedia calls the town abandoned since 2003, but a former resident quoted by Ghosts of North Dakota lived there until 1996, and her family stayed several years longer.

Sources also differ on the peak. One account puts the population near 700 from the 1930s to the 1950s, but the census figures for those years run from 170 down to 60. We follow the census.

Then and now

Omemee from the air, 1961 and 2023

The census counted 11 people in Omemee in 1960. On August 28, 1961, a U.S. Department of Agriculture survey plane photographed the town with houses, sheds and rows of trees still on its blocks beside the Great Northern line, north of where the Soo Line crossed it. The second photograph comes from the federal farm survey of August 6, 2023.

The section roads and the Great Northern line are where they were, and the creek still winds through the low ground east of town. The Soo Line track is gone, and a strip of grass marks its grade. Most residents moved their houses to Bottineau, the post office closed in 1967, and the town disincorporated about 1990 with three people. The blocks are now grass, trees and field, with the outline of a few streets.

Drag the line across the photo, or use the arrow keys.
2023 aerial photograph: the same section roads, railroad and creek, with grass, trees and a few street outlines on the old blocks and the Soo Line goneRailroad: Great NorthernOld streets and treesSoo Line grade, track goneCreek2023
1961 aerial photograph: houses, sheds and trees on the town blocks beside the Great Northern line, the Soo Line crossing south of town, and a creek to the eastRailroad: Great NorthernStreets and housesSoo LineCreek1961
1961 aerial photograph: houses, sheds and trees on the town blocks beside the Great Northern line, the Soo Line crossing south of town, and a creek to the eastRailroad: Great NorthernStreets and housesSoo LineCreek1961
1961. Houses, sheds and trees on the town blocks beside the Great Northern line, the Soo Line crossing south of town, and a creek to the east.
2023 aerial photograph: the same section roads, railroad and creek, with grass, trees and a few street outlines on the old blocks and the Soo Line goneRailroad: Great NorthernOld streets and treesSoo Line grade, track goneCreek2023
2023. The same section roads, railroad and creek, with grass, trees and a few street outlines on the old blocks and the Soo Line gone.

1961: U.S. Department of Agriculture; scan by the North Dakota Department of Water Resources, source, Public domain. 2023: U.S. Department of Agriculture NAIP, via USGS The National Map, source, Public domain. Both photographs cover the same 1.6 by 1.2 km and were lined up on 17 points on the section roads, town streets and the Great Northern railroad, to within about 1 m. Labels: the railroads and the creek from the 1954 USGS Omemee sheet (its Minneapolis line is the Soo Line), the rest from what the photographs show.

Video

Digging Main Street, now a field

A bottle digger who says he had permission to excavate works the back of the lots on the south side of Omemee's old Main Street, where a post office, drugstore, restaurant and rooming house once stood. The ground is stubble field with a line of trees. He probes, digs out old privy pits and lays out bottles from about 1900 to the World War I era, including a soda bottle of a bottling works that had a branch in Omemee. Digging needs the landowner's permission. The site is farmland; look from the road unless you have it.

Play “An Old Photograph Found in a Bank Vault Helps Solve an Eight-Year Mystery” from YouTube
“An Old Photograph Found in a Bank Vault Helps Solve an Eight-Year Mystery”, by Lost Horizons on YouTube. The player loads from YouTube when you press play.

Timeline

Rail junction to farmland

  1. Omemee is founded, named for Omemee, Ontario, the hometown of its first postmaster.
  2. The post office opens.
  3. Omemee incorporates as a city.
  4. The town moves a short way to the junction of the Soo Line and the Great Northern.
  5. Omemee's population is reported at 650, fourth in Bottineau County. A state agriculture review blames the slow growth on Bottineau's competition and the lack of a townsite promoter.
  6. The census counts 332.
  7. 222, then 170, 123 and 60 people.
  8. 11 people.
  9. The post office closes and mail moves to Willow City.
  10. Three people are left when the town disincorporates.
  11. The last large house, known as the Superintendent's House, is bulldozed, by Ghosts of North Dakota's reading of aerial photos. A visitor in 2012 heard its interior had been burned.
  12. Ghosts of North Dakota photographs what is left: pavement, sidewalks and fieldstone foundations, with a farmer storing equipment and bales on the site.

What's left

What you'll see

A fieldstone foundation wall on the townsite, April 2017
A fieldstone foundation wall on the townsite, April 2017 · Photo: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0

Very little. When Ghosts of North Dakota visited on Easter weekend 2017, most of the wood and brick buildings were gone. Some pavement, sidewalks and fieldstone foundations were left, and a farmer was keeping equipment and straw bales on the site. The writer warned of open holes. The school stood east of the northbound tracks, and its site is now a large hole. Wikipedia describes an abandoned power line and two crumbling buildings. A reader of the same site reported in May 2020 that the cemetery is still there and well kept by a local family. In a video posted October 26, 2024, an artifact digger working with permission stands on the south side of the old Main Street, now a stubble field, and says hardly a foundation is left.

The town bell survives in Bottineau, on display outside the Bottineau County Historical Museum.

On the historic maps below, the 1954 Omemee sheet still shows a grid of streets with a dozen or so buildings in the angle where the Great Northern and the Minneapolis line cross, and a creek winding past to the east. By the 1980 Bottineau sheet the name sits over a much smaller square of streets, with a gravel pit to the southwest. Today's map shows only the outline of a few blocks.

  • Paved streets and sidewalks
  • Fieldstone foundations
  • A few ruined buildings
  • The school site, now a hole
  • Cemetery
  • Town bell, at the museum in Bottineau
USGS topographic map of the Omemee townsite: a small square of roads beside a rail line and a creek
USGS The National Map, topo. The Omemee name beside a small square of roads, with the rail line running diagonally and a creek winding to the south.
Aerial view of a rectangle of trees and grass at the Omemee townsite, between fields, with a rail line crossing
Aerial imagery, same area. Trees and grass mark the old blocks among the fields; the rail line crosses diagonally.

Photo walk

Omemee at Easter 2017

Troy Larson and Terry Hinnenkamp of Ghosts of North Dakota made their first visit to Omemee on Easter weekend 2017; their camera dates the photos to April 15. These are their pictures, in the order of what they found.

Standing water on the townsite, with spruce, cottonwoods and a small red building beyond, April 2017
Standing water on the townsite, with spruce, cottonwoods and a small red building beyond, April 2017 · Photo: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0

Still standing was a small house-like building with a garage and an outhouse, sheltered by spruce and cottonwoods. Behind a broken picket fence stood a second, taller red building with a ladder against its wall.

The small red building and its garage, with a taller red building behind the fence, April 2017
The small red building and its garage, with a taller red building behind the fence, April 2017 · Photo: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
The taller red building and a white outhouse behind a broken picket fence, April 2017
The taller red building and a white outhouse behind a broken picket fence, April 2017 · Photo: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
The small red building with its door open, the outhouse behind, April 2017
The small red building with its door open, the outhouse behind, April 2017 · Photo: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
Inside the small building: a sink frame, pails and scattered household things, April 2017
Inside the small building: a sink frame, pails and scattered household things, April 2017 · Photo: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0

The house Ghosts of North Dakota calls the Superintendent's House, one of the last buildings of the town, was bulldozed between 2010 and 2013, by their account. In 2017 it was a pile of bricks.

Brick rubble where, by Ghosts of North Dakota's account, the Superintendent's House stood, April 2017
Brick rubble where, by Ghosts of North Dakota's account, the Superintendent's House stood, April 2017 · Photo: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0

Out in the open, fieldstone walls were the last ruins above ground, with patches of old pavement and sidewalk in the grass and open holes, one of them possibly a cistern, filled with rubble.

A roofless fieldstone building with a wooden section between its stone walls, April 2017
A roofless fieldstone building with a wooden section between its stone walls, April 2017 · Photo: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
A patch of old pavement in the grass under a cottonwood, April 2017
A patch of old pavement in the grass under a cottonwood, April 2017 · Photo: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
An open hole, possibly an old cistern, with rubble and tires dumped in it, April 2017
An open hole, possibly an old cistern, with rubble and tires dumped in it, April 2017 · Photo: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0

A farmer was using the townsite for equipment and straw bales.

A hay rake and straw bales stored on the townsite, the photographer's shadow in the grass, April 2017
A hay rake and straw bales stored on the townsite, the photographer's shadow in the grass, April 2017 · Photo: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0

Historic maps

Omemee on USGS maps, 1954–1980

Crops from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, centered on the townsite. Each sheet shows what surveyors mapped that year; compare them with today's topo and aerial on this page.

USGS topographic map around Omemee, 1954
Omemee sheet, 1954, 1:24,000 · U.S. Geological Survey, public domain · catalog record

Map & directions

Getting there

Bottineau is the closest town, about 14 miles away by road. The route runs south on ND 5 and ND 60, then a mile and a half of section-line roads to the townsite. From Minot, US 83 north and ND 5 east lead to the same turn.

USGS topographic map of the country between Bottineau and Omemee with routes drawn on it

Base map: USGS The National Map (public domain). Routes: OSRM on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), computed October 2026. Times assume dry roads.

From downtown Bottineau13.6 miabout 24 min
  1. From 5th Street East, turn left onto Main Street (County Road 49).0.5 mi
  2. Turn left onto 11th Street East, ND 5, and follow it out of town.5.4 mi
  3. Turn right onto ND 60.5.8 mi
  4. Turn right onto 17th Avenue Northeast.1.3 mi
  5. Turn right onto 89th Street Northeast to the townsite.0.6 mi
Google Maps directionsApple MapsOpenStreetMap

Road and safety notes

  • The townsite is about 9 miles south of Bottineau and 2 miles east, on roads rated 2WD.
  • The last mile and a half is on section-line roads. We have no dated report of their surface.
  • Ghosts of North Dakota warned of open holes on the site in 2017. Watch your step, and keep off farm equipment.

Photos

Omemee in photos

Great thanks go out to Ghosts of North Dakota, Troy Larson and Terry Hinnenkamp, who released their photographs into the public domain so that their work on North Dakota's abandoned places can live on.

Visitor reports

Been to Omemee?

Been there lately? Tell the next visitor what you found: whether you could get in, the state of the road and what's still standing. Photos are welcome. We read every report before it appears here.

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Nearby

Other sites near Omemee

Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our North Dakota index.

Sources

Sources and credits

  1. ghosttowns.com, "Omemee": county, 2WD road and directions, climate, best time, remains, the nine elevators, the soda factory, the 700 figure for the 1930s to 1950s, houses moved to Bottineau, the school site, the last resident in the 1980s.
  2. Wikipedia, "Omemee, North Dakota", retrieved October 2026: coordinates, the 1887 founding and name, the 1890 to 1967 post office, the 1902 incorporation and 1903 move, the census figures, the 1906 rank in the county, the disincorporation, the remains and the bell.
  3. Troy Larson, Ghosts of North Dakota, "What Happened to Ghost Town Omemee, North Dakota?", April 28, 2017, on an Easter 2017 visit: the businesses and the Omemee Herald, the 1906 state review, the 1990 count, a former resident who lived there until 1996, the Superintendent's House, the remains, farm storage and open holes; reader comments of April 2017 on the county-seat hopes and the burned house, and of May 24, 2020 on the cemetery.
  4. Lost Horizons, "An Old Photograph Found in a Bank Vault Helps Solve an Eight-Year Mystery", YouTube, posted October 26, 2024: the video on this page; the Main Street lots as field, hardly a foundation left, the businesses on the south side.
  5. Photos: Troy Larson and Terry Hinnenkamp, Ghosts of North Dakota, "What Happened to Ghost Town Omemee, North Dakota?", April 28, 2017, taken April 15, 2017 (camera dates); public domain (CC0) by the authors' release of August 29, 2022.
  6. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026.

Photo and map credits

  • A rusted metal shed and bare trees on the open townsite, April 2017: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
  • Inside the garage, its floor strewn with debris, April 2017: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
  • A fieldstone foundation wall in the grass, April 2017: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
  • The Omemee town bell under a sign reading "1890–1978, Double Clapper", outside the county museum in Bottineau, June 2013: Bert Garwood, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
  • Standing water on the townsite, with spruce, cottonwoods and a small red building beyond, April 2017: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
  • The small red building and its garage, with a taller red building behind the fence, April 2017: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
  • The taller red building and a white outhouse behind a broken picket fence, April 2017: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
  • The small red building with its door open, the outhouse behind, April 2017: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
  • Inside the small building: a sink frame, pails and scattered household things, April 2017: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
  • Brick rubble where, by Ghosts of North Dakota's account, the Superintendent's House stood, April 2017: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
  • A roofless fieldstone building with a wooden section between its stone walls, April 2017: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
  • A patch of old pavement in the grass under a cottonwood, April 2017: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
  • An open hole, possibly an old cistern, with rubble and tires dumped in it, April 2017: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
  • A hay rake and straw bales stored on the townsite, the photographer's shadow in the grass, April 2017: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
  • 1961 aerial photograph: U.S. Department of Agriculture; scan by the North Dakota Department of Water Resources, source, Public domain
  • 2023 aerial photograph: U.S. Department of Agriculture NAIP, via USGS The National Map, source, Public domain
  • Topo map, area base map and aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain).
  • Historic maps: USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection (public domain): Omemee 1954, 1:24,000; Bottineau 1980, 1:100,000.