This small barn still features typical elements from its construction in 1936: the sliding barn door and the small, centered loft door with a fixed, four-pane window.

In 1934 families of lignite coal miners west of Minot at Burlington faced a bleak future. The Depression was grinding into its fourth year, employment in the coal mines was slack, and people were losing hope. The lignite coal mines never offered much employment, just a few months in the winter. Now the local lignite mines faced stiff competition from out-of-state coal mines that had harder coal that burned hotter, offered at about the cost of local lignite coal thanks to cheaper railroad transportation.¹

Similar grim conditions were everywhere at that time, and the federal solution was to funnel funds to states, as state and local governments, as well as private and religious charities, had traditionally supported people facing hard times. A nonprofit group, the North Dakota Rural Rehabilitation Corporation (NDRRC), received about $100,000 to solve the destitute conditions of about 40 families by providing irrigated land, a house, a small barn, a henhouse, and a privy.

The NDRRC incorporated in 1934, and by late 1935 had purchased 640 acres for irrigable land, pasture, and home sites. It planned a dam on the Des Lacs River to provide gravity-fed irrigation water, and contracted to build about 35 sets comprising a house, barn, henhouse, and privy.² It appears that five families left the area or otherwise did not participate in the program.

The general idea was that the families would work cooperatively to market cash crops such as strawberries, raspberries, and seed carrots to local outlets near Minot. They could also raise hens and gather eggs, and the small barn could easily house a cow and calf as well as agricultural supplies and tools. They rented to own and paid $25 to $35 a month for a few acres of land, shared pasturage, and the house, barn, henhouse, and privy. By the early 1960s the project had reclaimed the $100,000 through rent, 40 percent of the hay crop, and 25 percent of the grain crops.³ The Burlington Homes Project was closely connected to Judge A. M. Christenson, who donated many hours to advance the project’s success.

This Minimal Tradition home has a basement and five rooms, including space for two bedrooms upstairs. The brick chimney, slightly offset door, sets of windows flanking the front door, two windows down, and one window in the apex of the gable end are features found in the Burlington Homes houses. Originally the homes had red cedar shingles, a small shed roof above the front door, and were heated with coal furnaces. From Burlington Centennial, p. 94.

A sturdy but small henhouse with a people door on the gable end. The tiny ventilator and ridge cap are original features of the henhouses.

The architectural firm Van Horn and Ritterbush provided specifications for these small buildings, which included high-quality materials such as fir structural members and red cedar siding, and conservative building practices like 12-inch on-center spacing for the ceiling joists in the small barns. The applicant families apparently had some say in the house design, since some have elevated basements, and some had rough-in plumbing initially while others did not.

The electrician was instructed to provide rough-in electrical wiring and detailed instructions to homeowners on how to wire light fixtures and electrical switches.⁴ One house, recently remodeled, had the outdoor water pump just outside the front door, which provided all the water for domestic purposes, at least initially. The specifications mentioned that the applicant families were to provide their own water well and trenching for the concrete privy vault.

Today the 1.5-story Minimal Traditional homes, small barns, henhouses, and at least one privy still dot the landscape along North and South Project Road just west of Burlington. Many of the homes have been remodeled, but the barns and henhouses are a tangible reminder of difficult times and creative solutions to improve a whole community. In the 1950s some of the lots were offered on a rent-to-own basis to veterans with disabilities, and eventually all of them transferred to private ownership.

Well-preserved barn at TC Landscaping in Burlington, still useful after more than 60 years.

¹ Burlington Centennial, 1883–1983 (self-pub., 1983), 92; “A Brief History: National Association of Rural Rehabilitation Corporations,” accessed Sept. 12, 2019, http://www.ruralrehab.org/briefhistory.html.

² Burlington Centennial, 90; Steven Martens, “Federal Relief Construction in North Dakota 1931–1945,” accessed Sept. 12, 2019, https://www.history.nd.gov/hp/historiccontexts.html.

³ Burlington Centennial, 90. For further background information, see Gudmund Leonard Dalstad, History of the North Dakota Rural Rehabilitation Corporation (Bismarck, ND: self-pub., 1996).

⁴ Specifications for the Burlington Homes Project, 3rd group of buildings, Van Horn Ritterbush Company Collection, box 6, file 47000107, State Archives, State Historical Society of North Dakota, Bismarck.

I love working in the Archives — but I know that our collections don’t appeal to children and young adults in the traditional way. We don’t have exhibits or spaces made for participation like in our attached State Museum. We are interactive, yes — but we have a research factor that is necessary to discover the gems in our holdings.

So when the younger age demographic wanders into the Archives, it does not surprise me to see them turn and walk back out. Consisting mainly of unique papers and photos, digital files, and books, the Archives aren’t cut out for a clientele of babies or toddlers.

However, we do interact with older children, and lately the number of our younger researchers has increased. Sometimes they wander in with parents doing research. Sometimes they are brought in to listen to an oral history or to assist an older family member with computer use. Sometimes, they are here for an event — like Future Farmers of America, or National History Day — and they find us while waiting to present or participate. Sometimes, they still turn and run, but they also occasionally get interested in what we are and what we have. It’s really exciting to watch this happen.

This image shows a classroom from Pierce County, approximately 1898. Times have changed! SHSND 10844-00108

Many of our younger patrons come during classroom visits. They get a behind-the-scenes tour, learn how to use our resources, and learn how to do research in specific collections. We’ve provided quite a few of these opportunities for high school groups — but also for their younger compatriots. This is so much fun, but so different in how we approach our discussion. Typically, our first approach is to explain what an Archives is and what its purpose is. What do we collect? What don’t we collect? How are we similar to and different from the museum collections?

I’ve given many memorable tours to and helped provide research for younger patrons. One year, I provided a behind-the-scenes tour to a mixed-age group from a one-room school in the western portion of the state. Their ages ranged from about 7 to 12. I had a group of middle school boys who job-shadowed several of us in the Archives. I’ve had various tours with groups of high schoolers — including a group that came in and got a taste of research in the Reading Room, led by one of my own past high school teachers!

Sometimes I show them how to use microfilm and help them learn how to look up big news events (World Wars I and II, September 11, the 1966 blizzard), or help them to look up something of personal importance, such as their own birth announcement or a family marriage announcement.

Seeing something such as this headline from 1930 would certainly be of interest to kids who wonder what Christmas was like when their grandparents were little.

Sometimes I help them get set up with viewing photo images in our Reading Room. Searching by topic is of great interest to them, and they respond positively to viewing a unique, captured moment of the past.

A little more than a year ago, we had multiple groups of fourth graders come to the State Historical Society to do research for school. We met about five times with various teachers and students. They got a tour of the Reading Room and learned how to look up our collections. Then we provided them with some collections that the teachers had requested ahead of time, as well as some general information files we had on various topics of interest that they were researching. They looked at photo collections, manuscript collections, general information files, books, and newspaper clippings on microfilm and online, all related to different topics — including steamboats, the city of Bismarck, and railroads. They selected and photographed or copied items that informed them about this history, which they shared with their class and used for their projects. At the same time, they worked with our Archaeology & Historic Preservation division and visited a local state historic site. While not all of the kids went to all of the locations of interest, they worked jointly on a project that all of the research went toward. It was great to see the kids get into their topics of study. They were so excited about what they found — it did an archivist’s heart good!

A thank you note I was sent after one of our job shadowing experiences. I have it hanging up in my office!

These kids and young adults will grow up to become our future patrons, and it is important that they know where to go for research, and what is available to them. In fact, it may help them in their school work — and it may help them with many other tasks.

We love to see the variation in our researchers and believe strongly in educating future researchers as to the importance of all of our history. If you would like to discuss scheduling a class trip or options for bringing youth to the State Archives, please contact us!