Sims is 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 ...
in
Morton County,
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 town was founded in 1883,
and Sims Scandinavian Lutheran Church was constructed the following year.
Today, the church has been restored and still worships every other Sunday.
[ The church ]parsonage
A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or ministers of a given religion, serving as both a home and a base for the occupant's ministry. Residences of this type can have a variety of names, such as manse, pa ...
has also been restored and is home to the Sims Historical Society Museum.Laura Bush
Laura Lane Welch Bush (née Welch; born November 4, 1946) is an American educator who was the first lady of the United States from 2001 to 2009 as the wife of George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States. Bush was previously the fir ...
visited Sims and toured its church.
History
Sims was founded in 1883 as a coal town
A coal town, also known as a coal camp or patch, is a type of company town or mining community established by the employer, a mining company, which imports workers to the site to work the mineral find. The company develops it and provides reside ...
. Coal mining and the town's brickyard helped Sims grow to a population of more than 1,000 people.[ However, the ]1910 Census
The 1910 United States census, conducted by the Census Bureau on April 15, 1910, determined the resident population of the United States to be 92,228,496, an increase of 21 percent over the 76,212,168 persons enumerated during the 1900 census. ...
recorded a population of just 86 people. The population fluctuated over the years, with an estimated 98 people in 1940.[
The post office was founded in 1883 and closed in 1947, with mail routed through ]Almont, North Dakota
Almont is a city in Morton County, North Dakota, United States. It is part of the " Bismarck, ND Metropolitan Statistical Area" or "Bismarck–Mandan". The population was 100 at the 2020 census. Almont was founded in 1906, incorporated in 19 ...
, to the south.
Sims Scandinavian Lutheran Church was built in 1884 as a combination church and residence. A new church was built in 1896 next to the parsonage.[ The church is reportedly North Dakota's oldest ]Lutheran
Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...
church west of 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 congregation still has roughly 50 members, even though they do not live in Sims.[
The last residence in Sims, a mobile home in the center of town, was occupied in 2005, but looked vacant by 2010, and was removed by 2012.]
References
External links
Ghosttowns.com entryInformation on Sims at Preservation North Dakota
{{Authority control
Ghost towns in North Dakota
Geography of Morton County, North Dakota
Former municipalities in North Dakota
Populated places established in 1883
1883 establishments in Dakota Territory
Reportedly haunted locations in North Dakota