Ghost Town Bibliography

Sources for the Ghost Town Initiative

There are certain key secondary works useful for interpretation of the rise and fall of towns on the Great Plains. They are listed here as historiographic context and historical background for papers on ghost towns of North Dakota. Participants in the initiative should choose books from this list to fulfill their book review requirements in HIST 710.

There also are certain key primary sources that should be consulted for every paper in the Ghost Town initiative. They, too, are listed here, along with helpful hints and useful forms for gathering information.

Secondary Works: Books
	Hine, Robert V. Community on the American Frontier: Separate but not Alone. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1980.
	Hudson, John. Plains Country Towns. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985. Hudson identifes the processes and institutions integral to the formation of railroad towns. Useful also for the concept of the “inland town.”
	Kraenzel, Carl F. The Great Plains in Transition. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1955. Pay particular attention to the chapter on “sutland” and “yonland” communities in the changing social organization of the plains.
	Miner, Craig. West of Wichita: Settling the High Plains of Kansas, 1865-1890. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1986.
	Miner, Craig. Next Year Country: Dust to Dust in Western Kansas, 1890-1940. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006.
	Nelson, Paula. The Prairie Winnows Out Its Own: The West River Country of South Dakota in the Years of Depression and Dust. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1996.
	Nelson, Paula. After the West Was Won: Homesteaders and Town-Builders in Western South Dakota, 1900-1917. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1986.
	Reps, John W. Town Planning in Frontier America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969.
	Robinson, Elwyn B. History of North Dakota. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966.
	Schwieder, Dorothy. Growing Up with the Town: Family and Community on the Great Plains. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2002.
	Stock, Catherine McNicol. Main Street in Crisis: The Great Depression and the Old Middle Class on the Northern Plains. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992.
	Stegner, Wallace. Wolf Willow: A History, a Story, and a Memory of the Last Plains Frontier. New York: Viking, 1962.
	Voisey, Paul. Vulcan: The Making of a Prairie Community. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988.

Secondary Works: Articles & Bulletins
	Humann, Julie, and Thomas D. Isern. Bowesmont: A Community History. Fargo: Institute for Regional Studies, 1998. Commissioned history documenting a town bought out by FEMA following the flood of 1997.
	Rathbun, Janet Dunlap. “All Roads Led to Strool: The Rise and Fall of One Man’s Town,” South Dakota History 36 (Winter 2006): 367-84. Good case study of a South Dakota community.
	Smith, T. Lynn. “The Role of the Community in American Rural Life,” Current Social Problems in Rural Education 14 (March 1941): 387-400.
	[Oklahoma bulletin on team haul concept]

Primary & Local Sources

R.L. Polk regional directories:

Minnesota, North and South Dakota, and Montana Gazetteer and Business Directory. St. Paul: R.L. Polk, 1918-19. Institute for Regional Studies, Research Room, F604.7.A18.

North Dakota State Gazetteer and Business Directory. St. Paul: R.L. Polk, 1921-22. Institute for Regional Studies, Research Room, F604.7.A18.

Fire Underwriters Inspection Bureau. North Dakota Fire Insurance Maps, 1921-65. Institute for Regional Studies, NDSU.

Ancestry Library, ancestry.com (accessible free via NDSU Libraries), for manuscript census returns.

Published census reports, for historic population figures and context

Local histories: county, community, church, and other

(Additional sources to be listed)

Online Map Services

Mapquest

Terraserver

HIST 710