rustad: 46°44′00″N 96°44′41″W

Established: Early 1890's

Town population: my guess is about 25-35

township:  Kurtz

Kurtz  township pop: 288

Notes: I first visited Sue and Mike (photographed above) on a hot July day, when Sue gave me a tour of their historic home and shared letters and photographs of their home she and the previous owner had received from relatives of the Kirkhorns.

I returned in September to photograph them in front of it. The house was built by the Kirkhorn family, who moved in on Christmas Eve, 1903, and the swing still hanging in the yard dates back to those early years. When Sue and Mike purchased the home in the mid-1980s, a granddaughter of the original owners visited and shared that she had played on that very swing as a child. In one photograph, Sue holds it — a small but steady thread connecting generations.

Rustad’s stories live not only in its buildings but in its people. Behind the houses along the main strip sits John Nokken Memorial Park, established in 1978, and the baseball field where Sue’s son once played. In recent years, the field has seen renewed life — there are now fourteen children living in Rustad. A letter from Mary Knight, who grew up in the home, shares memories of feeling “so safe (except when the bum got off the trains — then all the kids would hide),” a vivid reminder of daily life in a small railroad town. Though the original school later burned and was not rebuilt, the town’s history continues to surface through conversations, photographs, and the care of those who remain.