A county's history, moved here one building at a time.
Farms empty out and small towns get smaller. When a building in Nelson County was going to come down, people hauled it to Stump Lake Village and set it back up. Now a class can walk inside and see how this county actually lived.
Nelson County history your students can stand inside.
A field trip here is one class at a time, so nobody stands at the back of the room. Students sit at the desks in the country school, watch iron get worked in the blacksmith shop, and see what a farm family owned before electricity reached the township. Volunteers who grew up on these farms do the talking.
Ninety minutes for a short visit, half a day for the whole Village
Shaped around your grade and what you are teaching that month
Indoor space in the Old Main Street USA building if the weather turns
Room for buses, and a paved trail that keeps the group together
No charge for schools. Donations go back into the buildings
Twenty buildings, every one of them from around here.
Two log cabins. A country school, a church, a railroad depot, a house, a barn, the Quanbeck Shop, a flour mill, a blacksmith shop and a township hall. The machinery building holds threshers and steam engines. The engine building keeps the collection out of the weather, so there is something to see in any season. A paved trail runs the length of the Village, most buildings are accessible, and the restrooms are modern.
Field Trips
A morning built for one class. Six buildings, hands on the tools, and a bell the students get to ring before they leave.
How a visit runs Tours
A volunteer unlocks the buildings and tells you who lived in them. Sundays in summer, or any day for a group with notice.
Tour details Gift Shop
County history books, postcards of the buildings, and small things a student can buy with their own money.
What we stock Threshing Bee
Two days each summer. Thresher’s breakfast, parade, tractor pull, wagon rides, craft show and a petting zoo.
Bee weekendThe engines run, the belt turns, and the grain comes out the way it did in 1920.
Ten dollars for adults, five for kids 6 to 12, free under 6. One bracelet covers both days. The price has not changed in thirty years.
See the weekend
Inside Stump Lake Park, twelve miles south of Lakota.
The Village sits just inside the park’s stone gates on Highway 1. Whitetail deer browse the grounds most mornings. The sixty acres of woods next door are part of the second wildlife refuge in the country, set aside by Theodore Roosevelt for the waterfowl that still stop here.
10441 32nd St NE, Lakota, ND 58344
Directions and contact