Into the Great Dakota Prairie Country

Travelling West from Fargo to Bismarck we stopped for a visit to the Frontier Village and the National Buffalo Museum in Jamestown.

Yes, we came, we saw and photographed the nation's largest buffalo and maybe even the universe's largest.   



Not a living breathing beast, but a 26 foot high, 46 foot long,
60 tons of concrete buffalo



He is gigantic and constructed in 1958 . . . but I vacillate from the importance of the museum.  The most astounding part of the museum is the historical part that allows you to walk through a period of history taking you back over 150 years and allowing you to experience what prairie life was like.  The following photos help illustrate that period.

Travelling from town to town had you riding in something like this. 


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This is a view of the main commercial area - store after store after store, sort of like our strip malls, eh? 





This could be your store, office or summer home.




Ah, the schools back when true education took place.  The teacher, coal for the winter, a roof that didn't leak and a place for the teacher to live . . . where have we gone wrong?



Guess where he came from?  Yep, Jamestown, South Dakota



Of course there was a jail for the troublemakers!





A visit to the doctor/dentist

 


Monday's wash day!


The National Buffalo Museum provided displays about the cultural and natural history of the buffalo. The most fascinating section was the uses the Plains Indians found for every part from the tail for fly swatters to the horns for spoons. The museum is also home to a herd of buffalo - the most famous is White Cloud, the only living albino buffalo in North America. 

We now head toward our next site - Bismarck . .. the State Capital.  We will be visiting some stopping off points of Lewis and Clark on their search for a passage leading to the great Northwest of this nation.