In June and July 2017, instructor Anna Andrzejewski of the University of Wisconsin-Madison held a four week, three-credit class in vernacular architecture, with a week in North Dakota’s Stark and Hettinger Counties, recording farmstead layout and buildings. (Vernacular architecture embodies the common building methods, materials, and decorative techniques used in a particular region during a specific period.) While in western North Dakota, students interviewed farmstead owners and photographed, drew, and made notes on the architectural features of the various buildings in their study. As review and compliance coordinator for the State Historic Preservation Office, I helped define the parameters of the field school.

Old stone barn under study as part of the Farmsteads on the Frontier: German-Russian Immigrants in Western North Dakota field school, June 2017, photo by Susan Quinnell

Professor emeritus Tom Carter (University of Utah) assisted the students in their endeavors, holding the tape measure, inspecting restored tractors, and commenting on what he had noted on his first trip to North Dakota. His initial impression was that the North Dakota architecture he studied was clearly architecture of the American West, a category still being defined, but which includes the false-fronted main street building, the front-gabled mountain cabin, and the ethnic architecture of various groups that settled in the American West. Also on hand was a professional architectural historian, James Sexton from Massachusetts, who emphatically agreed. Sexton has worked in North Dakota on and off for several years and has provided hundreds of architectural site forms for research at our office. Carter is writing a book on architecture of the American West in his retirement and hopes to include work from his North Dakota field research.

Small granary being measured as part of the Farmsteads on the Frontier: German-Russian Immigrants in Western North Dakota field school, June 2017, photo by Susan Quinnell

Magnificent dairy barn with added stairs that lead to a hay loft converted to barn dance floor, off of Hwy 22, Stark County, North Dakota. Photo by Susan Quinnell

Barn cat meets student in the restored dairy barn, ground level. Stanchions with individual cow’s names are in the background. Photo by Susan Quinnell

After recognizing the stone barns and farmhouses in this sub-area of Stark and Hettinger Counties as examples of American Western architecture, the second notable feature to the field school group was the date of settlement. The students asked the land owners when their farms were settled. The answer from everyone was 1910. Not 1909 or 1911, but 1910. And despite this specific date, the buildings we surveyed included traditional small stone barns, the most up-to-date dairy barns of the time, and plain residential homes. Normally one would expect to find that the small stone barns were built by the first generation, the dairy barns by the next, and a small home first followed by a larger and more stylish house later. Yet here all of these types sprang up the same year, depending on the cash resources available to the owners, and perhaps the size of the family. I hope the follow-up research is able to explain why there were both traditional and modern buildings built at the same time. I think this is an important juncture in the history of settlement that occurred after a specific point in time— is perhaps after the railroads passed through the area, making standard building materials more affordable.

The third impression Tom Carter had of the settlements he studied here was how clean they were. Many of the farms and ranches he studied further west, being more isolated and generally poorer, had a more difficult time taking away the trash. He found lots of historic trash where ever he went, but here trash piles were fewer.

The students are home now, where they will complete two more components of the field school. The first is a presentation by Anna Andrzejewski, who hopes to return to North Dakota and present her findings. The second is the development of an e-book by the students which should be completed this fall.

Municipal steel water towers are currently my sideline research project. From what I have gathered so far, the research better speed up because the towers are coming down rapidly. I’ve been able to uncover 69 traditional-style water towers in North Dakota in the past three years, and in that time seven of them have been pulled down or are scheduled to be demolished.¹ I’m working with the Bureau of Reclamation to document some of these vital infrastructure elements prior to their razing.

Water towers are the most visible component of a municipality’s investment in a public potable water and sewer system, and provide pressure to move water through the system and storage capacity.

Stanley, North Dakota, provides a typical history of infrastructure development with the establishment of the community to provide coal and water for the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway (later the Great Northern Railway) railroad locomotives in 1887, a post office in 1899, and more than 40 businesses by 1906. In May 1908 the Stanley Village Board organized and began passing ordinances to establish streets and sidewalks, a telephone system, road and bridge maintenance, and a village well in 1909. By 1915, with Stanley’s population growing to more than 500, the Stanley Electric Company was established and a water and sewer system installed, along with a city well nearby. In 1917 the Minneapolis Steel and Machine Builders constructed the Stanley water tower, which remains in use today, to create pressure in the water supply system.²

Gregory R. Mathis Steel Water Towers Associated with South Dakota Water Systems, 1894 – 1967. Used with permission of the SD State Historical Society. Full context available at: http://history.sd.gov/preservation/OtherServices/SDWaterTowers.pdf

The structural side of documenting this group of water towers is straightforward, but documenting the manufacturer of each tower is more difficult. This traditional form of steel water tower has four steel legs, a center riser pipe, and a hemispherical bottom on the tank. Other identifying features are the guardrail around the circumference of the tank and the characteristic conical cap topped by a vent. From about 1900 to the 1960s, several regional water tower manufacturers dominated the market for construction of these handsome structures, but only two have been definitively documented to date. Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel Company and Minneapolis Steel & Machinery are the two manufacturers that supplied the towers to North Dakotan municipalities. The towns typically either hired the manufacturer’s own construction company or a regional builder who trained specialized teams to construct them.³

City of Flaxton Water Tower, Susan Quinnell.

It has been far more difficult to identify the “soft side” of municipal water development. Some municipalities got behind their water system construction projects quickly and efficiently. Williston’s project sailed through completion on the tide of progressive city officials who, by 1917, had built the water filtration plant, water tower and supply system, and paid off the municipal bond indebtedness of $40,000, primarily with the proceeds of the sale of water.⁴ Meanwhile other towns struggled to find local support for their pure water supply projects, even with the North Dakota Department of Health providing concrete evidence of rising levels of bacteria in individual wells sampled within the city limits of Northwood. This 1937 – 1939 project was one of many funded in part (45 percent) by the federal government’s Public Works Administration program to provide a reliable source of pure water and water for fire protection.⁵ My research continues with analysis of water tower types by geographic location and a search for the build dates on each municipality’s water tower.

¹Survey of City Auditors taken by e-mail February & March, 2017, and Google Maps
² William Stark, Stanley Water Tower: Context and History Stanley, North Dakota, 2008. SHSND, Archaeology and Historic Preservation Division manuscript collection, MS. 11258.
³ Survey of North Dakota City Auditors and Ronald E. Spreng, “They Didn’t Just Grow There: Building Water Towers in the Post War Era,” Minnesota History, (Winter 1992): 130 – 141.
⁴ Williston Graphic, March 29, 1917, 19.
⁵ William Start, Northwood and the Public Works Administration: A Brief History of Northwood, North Dakota’s Waterworks and Sanitation Systems, 2008. SHSND Archaeology and Historic Preservation manuscript collection, MS. 10400.

Mural discovered in building 607 at Grand Forks Air Force Base in October 2016. Photograph by Johnathan Campbell.

In early October 2016 Former Governors’ Mansion Supervisor Johnathan Campbell (serving as photographer) and I traveled to Grand Forks Air Force Base to record an interior wall mural discovered when some drywall was removed. Candido Veras signed the mural in 1975, when he was an airman at the base. The mural was about three feet by ten feet, but about 30% of it was destroyed when a door was installed through the wall more than 30 years ago. Candido Veras was an airman who painted murals and paintings during his time in the Air Force in the latter half of the 1970s. According to Bryan Booker, 319th Air Base Wing historian, the artist was a regular airman who served for four years and, after separating from the Air Force, continued to pursue his love of art. The University of Texas at San Antonio holds records on Candido Veras, and reports that in 1976 two more murals were painted in the Human Relation Office and the Strategic Air Command Center, also at Grand Forks Air Force Base. There is no record at the base of these murals. It isn’t uncommon that murals go unrecorded. Only in the last couple of decades have murals been documented at the Air Force Base.

The building where the remaining mural is painted has been on the base since 1959 and was renovated multiple times. During the current renovation to construct more office space for the 69th Reconnaissance Group, this artwork was revealed. It is painted on hollow concrete blocks in a small windowless room adjacent to a large hangar space.

Generally murals were and continue to be a part of military life, most painted by people of average artistic ability. Previous murals were recorded at the base, at Oscar Zero, (Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile State Historic Site) and at other military installations in North Dakota and beyond. Murals previously uncovered and documented by the Air Force in North Dakota generally depict mascots, important military events, or reflections on the Cold War. This mural has a different message, emphasizing airmen working together in harmony. Candido Veras’s later works retained many of the vibrant colors inspired by his early years growing up in the Dominican Republic, but became more abstract and modernist. Mr. Veras died in 2009 in San Antonio, Texas.

We hope more information will become available on his works in North Dakota.

Many historic bridges are protected from unrestrained destruction because of the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) 50 years ago. The NHPA obliges federal agencies to consider alternatives to demolition and to consult with state and local groups when repairs are needed. This year is an especially appropriate time to include a visit to some of the fascinating steel truss bridges protected by the NHPA process. Here are three of my favorites:

Viking Bridge
The recently restored Viking Bridge is about two miles northwest of Portland in Traill County. It is the oldest recorded bridge in North Dakota and is a Pratt thru truss steel bridge. Built in 1885 it was moved to its present location on the Goose River in 1915. The bridge was all prefabricated, except for the connector rods which had to be forged in place by a local blacksmith.

Viking Bridge in 1991, photo taken by Mark Hufstetler/Dale Martin SHSND/A&HP 32TR700

Restored Viking Bridge Photos Taken by Marilu Person June 2016

Johnson Bridge
The Johnson Bridge is a pinned Pratt pony bridge featured in the J. Clark Salyer National Wildlife Refuge scenic auto tour. Constructed around 1900 - 1909, it was designed by the Fargo Bridge and Iron Company with crossed, counter bracing ties. Nearly forgotten when replaced, it is kept and maintained as an exhibit on the tour as a result of consultation.

Photo by Lon Johnson/Pat Deeg, 1991 SHSND/A&HP 32MH128

The refuge headquarters is two miles north of Upham, McHenry County.

Long X Bridge
The Long X is an impressive 969 feet long with the largest span 325 feet. It is a rare cantilevered Warren thru truss bridge with alternating vertical members. Plans for the Long X Bridge, built in 1959, are evolving, and it is possible to keep the bridge. One proposal is to shorten the diagonal bracing, (the central “V”) and raise the central beam, allowing more than 20’ height clearance. It is located over the Little Missouri River on Highway 85/ND 200 in McKenzie County.

You can find your own favorite bridges to visit at www.bridgehunter.com. Bridge aficionados from all over the country maintain this website.

Which is your favorite bridge and why?

Susan is an architectural historian who loves old houses, barns and schools. She reviews projects that might impact cultural resources and researches earthen construction.

Welcome to A&HP’s initial processing lab, sieve sorter in foreground. For more information please see blog.statemuseum.nd.gov/blog/easy-question

Archaeologists and architectural historians use initial processing labs or wet labs, containing sieves, to discover tiny bits of evidence that measure big changes in technology. We included one of these rooms in the recent expansion at the Heritage Center. It is used to sort and process artifacts in the Archaeology and Historic Preservation Division (A&HP). The sieve stack (also known as a size-grader) and sorting trays help scientists sort soil, artifacts, and organic material. Researchers are usually searching for objects or fragments of objects that someone made or modified at some time in the past.

In northern plains archaeology, detailed procedures set out in 1989 by Dr. Stanley Ahler outline how to quickly make sense out of hundreds of bags of cultural material by sorting and weighing according to size grades. Viewed as an especially useful way to analyze lithic debitage (the flakes of stone that are removed from a cobble or preform when someone makes a stone tool), archaeologists statistically analyze hundreds or thousands of flakes that have been sorted by size. By doing so, researchers can gain new insights into methods of stone tool production over thousands of years.

Clean ordinary sand under magnification.

Architectural historians and masons also use such labs, equipped with sieves, microscopes, and Munsell color charts. They need the same tools to determine the best match for repairs or repointing between stones and bricks. These researchers try to match the mortar being used for restoration to the historic mortar. To match the sand in a mortar sample taken from an old brick or stone wall, you must first remove the binding element by digesting it in acid. If the original masons used a lime-based mortar, the lime will bubble away, leaving clean and rather attractive sands behind, as seen under the microscope. If the original mortar used a Portland cement, the acid digestion process will probably leave some hard chunks of cement with the sand.

Although Portland cements were known earlier, this technological change from lime mortars to Portland cement became widespread in the 1930s. Use of Portland cement was a fundamental change in building technology. Much of the art and science of lime-based mortars was nearly lost when mixes became far more standardized using Portland. Careful analysis of historic lime-based mortars and maintaining libraries of those recipes allows for nearly exact replicas in mortar when applied next to historic mortar.

Here both new bricks and new mortar needed to match the originals on the left and right of the photo. The architectural historians decided to match both as they were originally made rather than try to match the currently worn brick through artificial antiquing. The mortar will weather out in a rainy season to wash away the fines and leave the sand more exposed. Photos by S. Quinnell

So the same laboratory equipment is used in different applications to discover more about our pasts. In northern plains archaeology the wet lab allows analysis of many minute pieces from our ancient past, from Paleoindian big game hunters through the days of military forts. Similarly, mortar analysis performed with this same equipment can be used to understand changes in building mortar technologies from the earliest stone and brick buildings to the structures of the recent past.

"Details create the big picture.”
Sandy Weill, exuberantly successful US businessman and entrepreneur

In the Archaeology and Historic Preservation (A&HP) Division at the State Historical Society we help protect and study old and historic buildings in North Dakota. One of my favorite pastimes is to closely observe details of old structures and share what I’ve learned about them. The connections -the way old buildings are put together- are extremely important details of a building. If a building gets to be old and historic, it is only because the builder had a firm grasp of putting it together so that it would last. Here are some observations on treenails, wrought iron fasteners and rafter connections. Have you observed any structural connections that you thought were interesting?

Treenails, wrought iron fasteners, and rafters joined directly together at the ridge are three now- rare historic structural connections in North Dakota. Treenails are hardwood pins that look like, well, nails made out of trees. They are hammered into holes to secure wooden joints in barns and other buildings made with heavy timbers. The specific wrought iron fastener in today’s blog is the wrought iron loop used to connect a hanger assembly on the deck of the Viking Bridge (Traill County) to the bridge truss. The metal loop eye bar and cables were the only wrought iron used in the bridge, with the rest of the structure being manufactured of steel in Minnesota. The third rare historic connection consists of rafters joined together without the use of a ridge board at the top of a roof. The ridge board was generally adopted around 1900, presumably because nailing the rafters to a board was much faster than the alternative of crafting mortise and tenons for each pair of rafters.

Treenails

Treenails were and are used in timber frame construction to connect heavy wooden posts and beams together. Also called trenails or trunnels, they are long hardwood pins that secure a joint tightly.

Hand carved hardwood treenails in a small timber frame model used to teach kids about timber frame barns.

Treenails hammered in and cut off flush as typically found in timber frame structural members.

Wrought Iron Fasteners

A blacksmith welded the top wrought iron loop found on the side of the Viking Bridge north of Portland in Traill County. He used wrought iron, which was superior to steel for welding purposes.^[1] Viking Bridge was completed in 1885 at a time when metal bridges were quickly becoming popular with county road commissioners. The metal truss bridges were manufactured in other states and shipped to the closest railroad depot. Average local handymen under the supervision of a bridge engineer could quickly construct a metal truss bridge wherever one was most needed. The only construction specialist other than the bridge engineer was the blacksmith, who forged the wrought iron loops on the cable connections that fastened the truss to the bridge deck.

ND DOT completed the restoration of this oldest documented motor vehicle bridge in North Dakota in 2011.

Left: A wrought iron loop hand forged on location while this bridge was constructed in 1885, Traill County.
Right: The cables which fasten onto the deck with the wrought iron loop and attachment assembly.

Viking Bridge, north of Portland, Traill County, after restoration was complete. Photo by KLJ Engineering http://kljeng.com/projects/viking-bridge-rehabilitation

Rafters joined directly together at the ridge, (no ridge board)

The details of a structure’s construction help us date the building and understand the evolution of building construction. Treenails are probably the least reliable of the three connections for dating purposes, because timber framers still use them today, but the wrought iron connection on the bridge was only favored for about 20 – 30 years and was rare after 1900. Tongue and groove rafters also fell off sharply after 1900, as the ridge board caught on very quickly.

No ridge board here, rafters secured directly together in this school house built in 1894.

Left: An example of a mortise and tenon joint used to connect rafters at the apex. Ridge boards replaced this construction technique about 1900.
Right: Today, if building a stick-built structure, a carpenter would probably choose to use a ridge board to connect rafters. The ridge board supplies additional rigidity and strength to the roof structure, and avoids many hours of crafting multiple mortise and tenon joints. Photo from Griffith Home Analysis’ See example.com http://seeexample.com/index.htm?http&&&seeexample.com/proper_ridge_board_depth.htm

If you have noticed any similar intriguing historic structural connections in your neighborhood buildings, you can share your photos and comments on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/northdakotahistory