For many people outside the state, North Dakota conjures visions of a remote, sparse, and seemingly inhospitable landscape, replete with ghost towns, scattered farmsteads, and settings reminiscent of the movie Fargo. Yet beyond this facile image lies a spectacular array of high-style, vernacular, ethnic, and modern buildings, a pragmatic architecture that reflects the setting and settlers of the Great Plains. A distinct "prairie mosaic" of houses, homesteads, and rural churches draws on the cultures of Germans from Russia, Norwegians, and Icelanders, and varied Native American groups such as the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara. North Dakota's architectural heritage is complemented by more contemporary work dating from Progressive-era boom times and the New Deal to the present. This volume, with more than 400 entries illustrated by 250 photographs and 17 maps, provides the first comprehensive overview of the state, from Pembina and Walhalla to the Badlands. This richly diverse legacy includes earthlodges and Eastern Orthodox churches, powwow grounds and campmeeting grounds, and varied settings from the Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile State Historic Site to the International Peace Garden. The cast of characters is equally compelling, among them Sakakawea, Lewis and Clark, the Marquis de Mores, Theodore Roosevelt, Lawrence Welk, Peggy Lee, and regional and international architects working in a range of styles and traditions, from Marcel Breuer to Surrounded-by-Enemy. A volume in the Buildings of the United States series of the Society of Architectural Historians

A curtain flutters in the window of an abandoned farmhouse. Textbooks from the 1940s lay scattered on the floor of a one-room schoolhouse. Receipts for a load of grain sit on the desk of a ghost town grain elevator. If you are a person who likes exploring these abandoned places with camera in hand, North Dakota is a target-rich environment. Drive down any gravel road, and soon you will come across a relic from the past. This is why author John Piepkorn loves North Dakota. John Piepkorn is a photographer who has had a lifelong interest in abandoned places. On multiple trips across North Dakota in the last twenty-five years, he has documented hundreds of places that were once filled with life. Today, those places stand empty. John has made an effort to document the churches, schools, and abandoned farms that dot the North Dakota landscape. Each place has a story to tell, and even in the decay, beauty can be found.