Schafer

Overview

The county seat the railroad passed by

Schafer sat in the valley of Cherry Creek a few miles east of where Watford City now stands. Douglas Wick's place-name book, as quoted by the North Dakota court system's history, makes it the seat of McKenzie County from 1906 to 1941, with more than 200 people by 1920. In 1910 the county finished a small jail of native granite and concrete. The town's trouble was the railroad. The Great Northern came as far as Watford City and stopped. Wikipedia blames a land dispute with the Schafer family, which kept the railroad from laying track even though its grade reached the Missouri; Wick says the company decided it couldn't afford the extension. Watford City grew, and in 1941 it took the county seat.

Before that, Schafer's jail was the scene of the state's last lynching. The Haven family, Albert and Lulia and their four children, the youngest two months old, lived on a farm about a mile north of town. None of them was seen alive after February 9, 1930. Their 22-year-old hired hand, Charles Bannon, stayed on and told the neighbors they had moved away, until he began selling their property. Jailed for grand larceny that December, he confessed to the killings. In the early hours of January 29, 1931, a few days after he was brought to Schafer for arraignment, at least 75 masked men battered down the jail door and the cell door, took Bannon to the Haven farm, were ordered off it by the caretaker, and hanged him from the new bridge over Cherry Creek. Governor George Shafer called it shameful. No one was ever arrested.

Little is left. The jail stands beside a section road south of ND 23, with a metal marker telling its story.

Then and now

Schafer from the air, 1958 and 2023

Schafer became the seat of McKenzie County in 1906 and had more than 200 people in 1920, by Douglas Wick's counts. The seat moved to Watford City in 1941. On July 23, 1958, a U.S. Department of Agriculture survey plane photographed the townsite: a few buildings along 121st Avenue NW south of ND 23, with Cherry Creek looping to the east and open ground on both sides. The second photograph comes from the federal farm survey of September 2, 2023.

The highway, the section road and the creek's loops are where they were. A newspaper column in June 2025 described the 1910 jail as all that is left of the town; the marker database puts it about a quarter mile south of ND 23 on this road, but the photographs don't show which building it is. Buildings among trees stand along the road, and an industrial pad with a lined pond now sits north of the townsite, toward the highway.

ND 23Industrial pad and lined pond121st Avenue NWBuildings among treesCherry Creek2023

ND 23Open ground121st Avenue NWBuildings at SchaferCherry Creek1958

ND 23Open ground121st Avenue NWBuildings at SchaferCherry Creek1958

ND 23Industrial pad and lined pond121st Avenue NWBuildings among treesCherry Creek2023

1958: 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 3 road junctions and 14 stretches of highway and road, to within about 2 m. Labels: ND 23 from today's USGS topo and the Watford City sheets, 121st Avenue NW from today's USGS topo, Cherry Creek from the Watford City sheets, Schafer from the GNIS point beside 121st Avenue NW, the pad and pond from the guide's description of the aerial view, the rest from what the photographs show.

Timeline

County seat, jail and lynching

1. 1906Schafer becomes the seat of McKenzie County, by Douglas Wick's count in North Dakota Place Names.
2. 1910The stone and concrete county jail is completed. It will serve the county for 31 years.
3. 1910sThe Great Northern builds to Watford City but not on to Schafer. Wikipedia blames a land dispute with the Schafer family; Wick says the railroad decided it couldn't afford the extension.
4. 1920More than 200 people live in Schafer, according to Wick.
5. Feb 9, 1930The six members of the Haven family, on a farm about a mile north of town, are last seen alive. Their hired hand, Charles Bannon, stays on the farm and says they have moved away.
6. Dec 1930Bannon is jailed for grand larceny after selling off the family's property. The investigation finds the Havens were murdered, and he confesses.
7. Jan 29, 1931A masked mob of at least 75 men breaks into the Schafer jail after midnight, takes Bannon and hangs him from the Cherry Creek bridge half a mile east. It is North Dakota's last lynching. No one is ever arrested.
8. Jun 1931Bannon's father, James, convicted in Divide County as an accomplice, enters the state penitentiary. He is released in 1950 at 76, still saying he was innocent.
9. 1941The county seat moves to Watford City, and the jail's working life ends.
10. 2023End of the Rope, a feature film about the case, opens in North Dakota theaters. Its jail scene was filmed in the Schafer jail.
11. Jun 2025A newspaper column describes the old jail as all that is left of Schafer.

The record

The night of January 28, 1931

The fullest account is the North Dakota court system's history page, built from the Williston Herald, the Bismarck Tribune, the trial record and state files. Bannon had been moved on January 23 from the larger jail at Williston so that he could be arraigned at Schafer. His father James was held there too, as an accused accomplice. That night Deputy Peter Hallan and another prisoner were also in the building. Sheriff Syvert Thompson, who lived nearby, saw lights and came out, and the mob led him away. He and Hallan counted at least 75 men in at least 15 cars. The men used timbers to break the front door and then the cell door, which nearly defeated them.

Attorney General James Morris investigated for less than a week and concluded that the mob's members could not be identified. A Federal Council of Churches inquiry that spring found that the authorities had taken the prisoner back to the scene of the crime and put him in a makeshift jail, which gave every chance to a mob. James Bannon was tried in Divide County, convicted and sentenced to life. When he sought parole in 1939, Attorney General Alvin Strutz reported that some prosecution of the lynchers should have been started, however unpopular.

"It may not have been a popular thing to do in McKenzie County but on the other hand it would have been the right thing." Alvin Strutz, 1939

The Havens are buried together in Schafer Cemetery. Bannon is buried in Williston.

What's left

The jail on 121st Avenue

The jail is a small building of native stone and concrete. Its marker reads that it was completed in 1910, served McKenzie County for 31 years, and was the jail from which Bannon was taken. The Historical Marker Database places the marker about a quarter mile south of ND 23 on 121st Avenue NW, with photos taken in August 2020. A High Plains Reader writer, in a July 2017 piece about a January visit, found the jail behind a wooden fence, the cells no longer intact, and on one wall writing left by an inmate in 1923. The court system's history, from the mid-2000s, described a cluster of buildings at Schafer including an abandoned school; the 2025 column mentions only the jail. We haven't confirmed which is current.

The current USGS topo puts the Schafer label beside 121st Avenue NW, just west of a loop of Cherry Creek. The aerial view shows farm buildings along the road, a house or two to the south, and an industrial pad with a lined pond to the north, toward the highway. Both Watford City sheets below mark Schafer just south of ND 23 east of Watford City, with Cherry Creek winding southeast from it. The one dated 1953 is a later revision: its collar reads limited revision 1967, so the two crops show much the same thing.

• County jail (1910), with marker
• Farm buildings along 121st Avenue NW
• Cherry Creek bridge site, half a mile east
• Schafer Cemetery, toward Watford City

Photo walk

Around and inside the jail, July 2017

Troy Larson and Terry Hinnenkamp of Ghosts of North Dakota photographed the jail on July 26, 2017, and wrote it up two days later, retelling the case largely from the Bismarck Tribune's reports of 1930 and 1931. Their photos follow the building from the outside, past its two markers, and inside the jail where Charles Bannon and his father James were held in January 1931.

The building is small and plain, one story of stone under a hipped metal roof. In 2017 trees had grown up against one end, and open prairie and a butte lay beyond. The marker sign stands on two posts close to the wall.

Two markers are fixed at the jail. The sign gives the building's dates and names the family: it was from this jail that Charles Bannon, the confessed murderer of the six members of the Albert E. Haven family, was taken and lynched off a bridge half a mile east on January 29, 1931. The Ghosts of North Dakota post names them all: Albert and Lulia Haven and their children Daniel, Leland, Charles, who was two, and Mary, who was two months old. A bronze plaque on the wall names the builder, the late John Gerard of Charbonneau, and gives the start of work as 1908.

Inside, the jail is bare concrete with its paint peeling away. A ceiling of riveted steel lattice runs overhead, and the windows are small, barred and set high in the walls. The post notes that through windows this high the Bannons could have seen nothing of the mob arriving outside. The mob broke in with timbers, first the front door and then a steel cell door. The door of the cell where Bannon was held is no longer at the jail: the post lists it among the relics of the case in the museums at Alexander and Watford City.

The photographers went inside in 2017. We have no source on who owns the jail now or whether visitors may enter; look from the road unless you have permission.

Historic maps

Schafer on USGS maps, 1953–1967

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.

19531:250,00019671:250,000

Map & directions

Getting there

Watford City is five miles west. The routes below were computed from OpenStreetMap and end near the jail on the section road south of ND 23, which the marker database names as 121st Avenue NW. We haven't driven them.

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

Photos

Schafer in photos

A weathered wooden house and a field planter at Schafer, May 2008A gravel road toward the farmsteads at Schafer, May 2008Schafer Cemetery, September 2020A wooden door standing open at the jail, half hidden by the trees grown up against it, July 2017

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 Schafer?

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.

Thanks. Your report reached us, and we'll read it before it goes on the page.

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Nearby

Other sites near Schafer

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

• Charbonneau27.0 mi W · McKenzie
• Sanish32.9 mi NE · Mountrail
• Wheelock34.4 mi N · Williams
• Buford39.7 mi W · Williams
• Van Hook39.8 mi E · Mountrail
• T E Mple41.2 mi N · Williams
• Gorham45.3 mi S · Billings
• Belden45.4 mi NE · Mountrail

Sources

Sources and credits

1. North Dakota Court System, "North Dakota's Last Lynching", Mike Hagburg, 2003, updated 2006: the Haven family, Bannon's confessions, the January 23 transfer, the night of January 28–29, 1931, the mob, the Cherry Creek bridge, the investigations, the Federal Council of Churches finding, James Bannon's trial and release, the 1939 Strutz report, the burials, Wick on the county seat, population and railroad, the marker text and the cluster of buildings with an abandoned school.
2. Wikipedia, "Schafer, North Dakota", retrieved October 2026: coordinates and elevation (GNIS 1031373), the county seat and its move to Watford City, the Schafer family's land dispute with the Great Northern, the jail as the last sign of the town.
3. Historical Marker Database, "The Schafer Jail", photos of August 27, 2020, revised July 17, 2025: the marker text, its location a quarter mile south of ND 23 on 121st Avenue NW.
4. Northern Sentry, "North Dakota ghost towns", Marvin Baker, June 26, 2025: Schafer left with nothing more than the old county jail.
5. Northern Sentry, "End of the Rope", Marvin Baker, May 5, 2023, and My Dakotan, Kim Fundingsland, April 17, 2023: the film, its jail scene shot in the Schafer jail, the jail in its original location.
6. High Plains Reader, "If the walls could talk", Sabrina Hornung, July 19, 2017: the wooden fence, the marker sign, the cells, the 1923 inscription.
7. James Madison University, Lynching Markers project, "The Schafer Jail": the marker in its national context.
8. Ghosts of North Dakota, "Schafer Jail, a Mass Murderer, and a Vigilante Lynch Mob", July 28, 2017, from a visit on July 26, 2017, retelling the case from the Bismarck Tribune's reports: the Haven family's names and ages, the Bannons held at Schafer in January 1931, the timbers and the steel door, the high windows, the cell door among relics in the museums at Alexander and Watford City; its photos for the jail as it stood in 2017.
9. Schafer Cemetery's location: OpenStreetMap, October 2026.
10. Photos: Wikimedia Commons, and Troy Larson and Terry Hinnenkamp of Ghosts of North Dakota (July 26, 2017), public domain (CC0) by the authors' release of August 29, 2022; credited below each one. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026. Not field-checked.

Photo and map credits

• A weathered wooden house and a field planter at Schafer, May 2008: In memoriam afiler, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
• A gravel road toward the farmsteads at Schafer, May 2008: Andrew Filer from Seattle (ex-Minneapolis), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
• Schafer Cemetery, September 2020: Tim Evanson, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
• A wooden door standing open at the jail, half hidden by the trees grown up against it, July 2017: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
• The jail in July 2017: walls of fieldstone set in concrete, a rusted metal roof, a painted door and window openings covered with green panels, with trees grown up against one end and a sign on posts at right: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
• The jail and its marker sign, with the prairie, a fence post and a butte beyond, July 2017: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
• The marker sign: native granite stone and concrete, completed 1910, county jail for 31 years, and the jail from which Charles Bannon was taken and lynched on January 29, 1931, July 2017: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
• The bronze plaque: built by the late John Gerard of Charbonneau, N.D., begun 1908, completed 1910, July 2017: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
• Inside the jail: steel lattice ceiling, high barred windows and the open door to daylight, July 2017: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
• A barred window high in the wall, trees pressing against the screen outside, July 2017: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
• An empty room under the same lattice ceiling, its walls peeling, July 2017: Ghosts of North Dakota, source, CC0 1.0
• 1958 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
• Area base map, topo and aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain).
• Historic maps: USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection (public domain): Watford City 1953, 1:250,000; Watford City 1967, 1:250,000.