Kenmere, North Dakota - long abandoned homestead

Kenmere, North Dakota, long abandoned a Homestead that was originally built in the late 1800's. There are hundreds of these across North Dakota that were built after the "land give away" where families were able to acquire land which was offered in three sizes 640 acres (known as a "whole") , 320 acres ( a "half") or 160 acres ( a quarter"). You could only take as much land as your family could farm with horses or mules. This home shows the growth of this family as they had more children to work on the farm they built additions on to the house. This house has 2 additions a larger kitchen here on the back of the house and another to the right of the main 2 story structure. North Dakota was the largest nuclear missile field which only has three divisions the 740, 741 & 742 which accounts for somewhere in the neighborhood of 160 to 200 'Minuteman lll missiles" (they each have 3 nuclear devices on top of each). There are no missiles or launch control facilities built within 3 miles of each other. I had the opportunity to visit the 16 control facilities which meant I had to cover 8500 square miles. The missiles are what I thought was the reason for so much abandonment but I found that mostly the heirs were not interested in continuing the hard long hours of work needed to continue the farms. The reason all of the structures are still standing is the fact that it hardly ever rains. They receive their water for growing crops is delivered as snow in the winter when it melts it is deeply absorbed into the ground. So the wood is exposed to a very small amount of rain.
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