Skip to main content

2016 Summer Mountain Trip Part 11; Lonely US Route 85 in the Dakotas

Following spending the night in Belle Fourche my destination was in North Dakota in Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  From US Route 212 in Belle Fourche it was a solid 174 miles north to Interstate I-95 on a desolate stretch of US Route 85.


This blog entry serves as Part 11 of the 2016 Mountain Trip series, Part 10 can be found here:

2016 Summer Mountain Trip Part 10; Devil's Tower National Monument

US Route 85 north of Belle Fourche in South Dakota traverses through rural Butte County and Harding County.  Between Belle Fourche and the North Dakota State Line there isn't much to capture the interest.  The site of interest I did find was the ghost town of Redig in southern Harding County.  Oddly Redig is something I've never been able to find much information on as it rarely ever appears on historical maps.  The community has an abandoned service station that appears to have been last in use in the mid-20th century.  There was no apparent signs of life amid the abandoned buildings and derelict cars.




US 85 enters North Dakota in Bowman County.  The first real town north from Belle Fourche is the County Seat in Bowman at the junction of US 12.  I stopped in Bowman for a refill of gas and a bag of M&Ms before continuing northward on US 85.

US 85 enters Slope County north of Bowman County.  I stopped in Amidon which is the second least populated incorporated County Seat in the United States with a population of 20.  Amidon was founded in 1910 and was anticipated to be a rail siding of a Milwaukee Road Railroad branch line that ultimately never made it to the community.  When Slope County was split from Billings County in 1914 Amidon became the county seat.  Amidon was the last North Dakota County seat to receive electricity by 1950.  Apparently Amidon once had a population of about 150 in the 1920s but along with Slope County has declined.  Reportedly the Amidon County Post Office closed in 2018.


North of Amidon US 85 enters Stark County where it meets I-94 in Belfield.  From Belfield I entered I-94 west towards Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

Part 12 of the 2016 Summer Mountain Trip Series can be found here:

2016 Summer Mountain Trip Part 12; Theodore Roosevelt National Park, I-94, and Old US 10

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Chowchilla Mountain Road to Yosemite National Park

Chowchilla Mountain Road of Mariposa County is one of the oldest roadways servicing Yosemite National Park.  As presently configured this fourteen-mile highway begins at California State Route 49 near Elliot Corner and terminates at the Wawona Road in Yosemite National Park.  Chowchilla Mountain Road was constructed as a franchise toll road over Battalion Pass circa 1869-1870.  The highway was built at behest of Galen Clark to connect the town of Mariposa to his property near the South Fork Merced River at what is now Wawona.   In late 1874 the highway along with Clark’s Station would be purchased by the Washburn Brothers.  The Washburn Brothers would continue to toll Chowchilla Mountain Road as part of their Yosemite Stage Route lines.  The highway would ultimately become a Mariposa County public highway in 1917.  Mariposa would later be more directly linked with Yosemite Valley in 1926 following the completion of the Yosemite All-Year Highwa...

Interstate 40's Tumultuous Ride Through the Pigeon River Gorge

In the nearly 60 years Interstate 40 has been open to traffic through the Pigeon River Gorge in the mountains of Western North Carolina, it has been troubled by frequent rockslides and damaging flooding, which has seen the over 30-mile stretch through North Carolina and Tennessee closed for months at a time. Most recently, excessive rainfall from Hurricane Helene in September 2024 saw sections of Interstate 40 wash away into a raging Pigeon River. While the physical troubles of Interstate 40 are well known, how I-40 came to be through the area is a tale of its own. Interstate 40 West through Haywood County near mile marker 10. I-40's route through the Pigeon River Gorge dates to local political squabbles in the 1940s and a state highway law written in 1921. A small note appeared in the July 28, 1945, Asheville Times. It read that the North Carolina State Highway Commission had authorized a feasibility study of a "...water-level road down [the] Pigeon River to the Tennessee l...

Angus L. Macdonald Bridge

At 1.3 kilometers (or about 0.84 miles) in length, the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge is one of two bridges crossing over the Halifax Harbour between Halifax, Nova Scotia and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, with the other bridge being the A. Murray Mackay Bridge . Opened in 1955 and named after former Nova Scotia Premier and Canadian Minister of Defense for Naval Services Angus L. Macdonald, the Macdonald Bridge was the first bridge that crossed Halifax Harbour that was opened to traffic. The Macdonald Bridge was also the subject of the Big Lift, which was only the second time in history that the span of a suspension bridge were replaced while the bridge was open to traffic. Planning began in 2010 for the Big Lift, while construction took place between 2015 and 2017. Similar work occurred on the Lion's Gate Bridge in Vancouver, British Columbia before the project took place on the Macdonald Bridge. At this time, much of the bridge infrastructure is new, leaving only the towers, main cables and...