Having veered from HW-2 due to its four-lane nature, I ventured down to Jamestown, birthplace of Louis L’amour. On the way, I passed this old pullman car. Pullman cars were made famous by Lincoln’s funeral train; this particular car was transported with great effort, I’m told, something involving getting stuck in one of the ubiquitous North Dakotan bogs and having to use stakes to painstakingly walk it to drier land, but the details escape me. An old man lived in it for many years, but clearly it has since been allowed to fall into ruin. Something of a pity, since the interior was done in hardwood.
Harvey has a nice little park you can pull into and rest for a bit (or stay overnight). You can also enjoy some trains and grain elevators; grain elevators dot the North Dakotan landscape at regular intervals.
The drive down to Jamestown was quite peaceful.
In Jamestown, the buffalo at the National Buffalo Museum either graze near I-94, or gaze at you sadly from their position on mounts or the floor.
Albino buffalo are apparently a big deal, and there used to be one here until she was allowed to retire to her home ranch and die of natural causes. It’s unclear how this particular albino buffalo died, however, since non-albino buffalo can typically live at least a couple of decades in captivity, and her informational plate reads:
THIS WHITE BUFFALO (Albino) was born in 2011 on the SHIREK BUFFALO RANCH. Her Father was DAKOTA THUNDER, son of WHITE CLOUD. Mount done by: James R. Benson, East Grand Forks, MN
The museum curator must have decided that if you were to sit in the golden buffalo horn chair, perhaps you wouldn’t wish to constantly stare at the face of your carpet.
If you enter the last room of the museum, you’ll find that they mostly ran out of buffalo paraphernalia, so you’ll observe guns (presumably used to kill buffalo), a bear, and the heads of an elk and a deer.
I’d heard you could get buffalo cookie cutters at the museum, but they sold out and evidently decided that selling out was not a sign they should stock more. The attendant suggested I try online, since that would be cheaper anyway. Correct, of course, but somewhat disappointing when what you really want is a Buffalo-cookie-cutter road-trip souvenir, not a Buffalo cookie cutter. Oh well.
Wandering outside the museum is moderately entertaining. I guess they don’t work too hard to clean up graffiti.
And least not Buffalo ball graffiti.
Also by the museum is Frontier Village, which has free admission. North Dakotans do not seem to like to destroy their old buildings, which is to be admired, but they do seem to like move old buildings and situate them in sardine-like rows separated by blacktop. My favorite was the sheriff’s office two feet away from the saloon.
I guess they wanted to pay tribute to the fact that Louis L’amour was born in Jamestown, but it was unclear to me how dedicating a “shack” to him in their rather monstrous conglomeration of old buildings was a compliment.
Fargo’s version is a more honest tourist trap, naming its sandwiching of transported buildings “Bonanzaville” and then charging admission.