North Dakota

                  

Railroad Museum, Minot, ND

                                                                     

Almost every town found along the highway in North Dakota owes its existence to the railroads. Stop in at the Railroad Museum of Minot and see how rail magnates such as James J. Hill helped build the country.

Railbuffs and history lovers should also check out the Amtrak station, which in December 2010 reopened with a refurbished lobby that has been restored to evoke a passenger train station at the turn of the last century. The station is no museum, though. Amtrak's Empire Builder train (Hill's nickname) still stops here.

The museum is open 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays and by appointment.

19 1st St NE
701-833-7421

 

Lake Sakakawea

Named after the Shoshone-Hidatsa woman who accompanied the Lewis & Clark Expedition from present day North Dakota to the northwest, the lake is the third largest man-made body of water in the United States.

There are opportunities to camp along its shores, fish and do other water sports. Route 83 also skirts the Audubon National Wildlife Refuge.

Take a detour west off of either State Highways 23 or 37 to visit the Three Affiliated Tribes reservation. While the Garrison Dam was an engineering marvel, the tribes paid a terrible price after its completion.

Link to this story to read more.

To see the dam itself, go west from Highway 200 to the town of Riverdale.  This is one of the few towns that doesn’t owe its existence to the railroads. It was built in the 1950s to accommodate the dam’s construction workers.

 

The Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, Washburn, N.D.

While there are several Lewis and Clark Interpretive Centers found along the path of their 1804-1805 journey, this one focuses on the Corps of Discovery’s first winter spent near here among the Mandan people.

Open most days. Call 701- 462-8535.

After visiting the center, travelers can follow the signs down the hills to the banks of the Missouri and visit a replica of Fort Mandan, where the party spent the winter.

It is here and on the bridge on State Highway 200A, where one can see the grand Missouri as it was meant to be before the Army Corps of Engineers destroyed it underneath the Oahe and Garrison Dams.

 

North Dakota Heritage Center/State Capitol

From the north, Highway 83 once cut through the center of Bismarck. Stay on this road instead of going on the Interstate, and travelers will come to the Capitol and the state’s history museum. Called the “Skyscraper of the Prairie,” the art-deco style capitol was completed in 1934.

The heritage center features everything from dinosaurs to exhibits on present day life in the state.

612 East Boulevard Ave.
Bismarck, North Dakota

Exhibit galleries and Museum Store:
8am - 5pm M-F; Sat. & Sun. 10am - 5pm.
The Heritage Center, including exhibit galleries, is closed on major holidays.

 

 

Travel Tips

Coming from the north in Bismarck, the signs will tell you that 83 converges with I-94 heading east, and that for 20 or so miles drivers must take one of the dreaded four-lane Interstate. But the legacy road still exists. Ignore the on ramp and continue south through town, past the capitol building and through downtown until reaching E. Main Ave. Take a left there and follow it east. It becomes County Road 10, a reference to the fact that U.S. Routes 83 and 10 were one and the same from Bismarck to Sterling. The towns of Menoken and Mckenzie are along this road.

When reaching Menoken, travelers can follow the signs north to the Interstate. cross over and follow the signs to the Menoken Indian Village State Historic Site. This is an archeological site that is worth exploring.

The legacy road ends at Sterling. In 1926, at the birth of the federal highway system, North Dakota representatives complained that the first proposed routes had a numbered highway in the eastern part of the state and the western part of the state, but nothing down the middle. So the commissioners created Route 83, and initially laid it out from Sterling to Hull, North Dakota. So it could be said that Sterling is the birthplace of Highway 83. One could say the same for Hull, but it is now a ghost town.

Good Eats

An unexpected pleasure while walking down a sidewalk is being struck in the nose by the smell of freshly baked bread. The Novel Bakery in downtown Linton lures visitors with such aromas. The bakery is run by Mary Tschosik, a fourth-generation businessperson in the town. It sells a regional dish, kase knoeplfal, better known as cheese buttons. It is similar to other dishes that have meats, cheeses and spices stuffed inside a bun or pasta-like noodle, but this version came over with German-Russian immigrants.

Cheese buttons in a restaurant setting can be found at Calico's on main street Mound City, South Dakota.

 

 

                             

Highway 83 was the home of many famous Americans, but perhaps none better known than Lawrence Welk. The son of German-Catholic immigrants was born and raised on a homestead a few miles west of the highway, north of Strasburg.

The bandleader and musician became a household name with his popular TV show in the 1950s.

Follow the signs to his parent’s home, and travelers can take tours of the house and other structures. It is open only during the summer season. However, visitors can walk its grounds in the off season.

 

St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Hague, N.D.

Just east of the highway as travelers are near the South Dakota border is Hague, a town of a few dozen residents. The town features a spectacular Gothic-style church that is on the National Register of Historic Places. If the doors are open, visitors can see that the small German-Catholic community spared no expense in constructing this house of worship.

               

Check out the other U.S. Route 83 Travel Pages!

South Dakota

Nebraska

Kansas

Oklahoma

North Texas

Central Texas

Rio Grande Valley