Mystic Theatre, Marmarth North Dakota by Arielle Seibold-Galston
Via Flickr:
After wanting to see Marmarth ND for over 10 years I finally was able to see it this summer! I thought it would feel alot more empty, but the tiny town of 100 some people was bustling! Marmarth has quite a few amazing abandoned buildings, and a great history! Read all about it... "The city of Marmarth was established in fall of 1907 along the Milwaukee Road transcontinental rail line known as the Pacific Extension. The name comes from a combination of letters in the first and middle names of Margaret Martha Finch, granddaughter of Albert J. Earling, president of the railroad at the time.[4] The city was originally laid out on the east side of the Little Missouri River, near where a post office known as Neva and a hotel had already been established.[6] However, due to problems with securing additional land on the east side of the river for a reasonable price, the city was moved to the opposite side in 1908.[7] Marmarth grew quickly to serve the hundreds of homesteaders who flooded into the area. Because the first two decades of the 20th century were unusually wet, the new settlers reaped harvests of wheat on a scale "that promised to turn even owners of modest farms into wealthy men."[8] By 1920, Marmarth had 1,318 inhabitants.[9] An auditorium, a theater, a large train station, a newspaper, and paved sidewalks were all established during this time.[7] By the 1920s, a combination of the end of the agricultural boom occasioned by World War I and a return to more normal (i.e., drier) climatic conditions drove many of the settlers from their farms.[citation needed] At the 1930 census, the city's population had declined nearly 50% from a decade earlier. This population decline has continued every census thereafter, with the number of residents in 2010 nearly 10% of the number recorded in 1920.[9] Dakota, a fossilized Edmontosaurus, a type of duckbill dinosaur, was discovered near Marmarth in 1999 by Tyler Lyson.[10] The fossil is unique in that soft tissue, skin, and muscle were fossilized as well as bone." -wikipedia
