Schafer is an

unincorporated area An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

and the former

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

McKenzie County McKenzie County is a county in the U.S. state of North Dakota. As of the 2020 census, the population was 14,704, and was estimated to be 14,782 in 2024, The county seat and largest city is Watford City. McKenzie County is also the largest cou ...

North Dakota North Dakota ( ) is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota people, Dakota and Sioux peoples. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minneso ...

, United States. The county seat was moved to Watford City, and is now a

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

. However, the town would still have existed if not for a land dispute between the Schafer family and the Great Northern Railway. The railroad never laid tracks due to this, but grading was done to the

Missouri River The Missouri River is a river in the Central United States, Central and Mountain states, Mountain West regions of the United States. The nation's longest, it rises in the eastern Centennial Mountains of the Bitterroot Range of the Rocky Moun ...

. The farm of Albert and Lulia Haven was located just to the north of Schafer; they and their four children were murdered in February 1930. Charles Bannon, their hired hand, confessed to the killing; he became the last man in the state of North Dakota to be

lynch Lynch may refer to: Places Australia * Lynch Island, South Orkney Islands, Antarctica * Lynch Point, Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica * Lynch's Crater, Queensland, Australia England * River Lynch, Hertfordshire * The Lynch, an island in the Rive ...

ed. The only remaining sign of the town is the old county jail, from which Bannon was dragged by the lynch mob on the night of his death.

References

Ghost towns in North Dakota Populated places in McKenzie County, North Dakota {{US-ghost-town-stub