The tiny community of Sarles, North Dakota, is situated on the border between the counties of Cavalier and Towner. It may be hard to believe, but this dot on the map was once a bustling railroad town. Sarles likely exists because of a man named James J. Hill, a Canadian businessman who was responsible for the birth of the Great Northern Railroad.

In 1878, after building a bridge across the Red River at Grand Forks, Hill expanded his railroad into northern Dakota Territory, with the goal of connecting small towns to the main line. In 1905, at the end of the Great Northern Railway extension north of Munich, the town of Sarles was born, named for Governor Elmore Y. Sarles who was inaugurated that same year. Because Sarles was located at the end of the railroad line, a roundhouse and facilities for turning locomotives was necessary.

During the first years, Sarles had a messy problem, the low elevation of the land on which the town stood had a considerable drainage problem. To conquer the mud, the wooden sidewalks surrounding the village square were constructed three feet off the ground, making it quite convenient for visitors to tie their horses to the edge of the walk when they arrived in town to conduct their business!

By 1906, over 400 people were living in Sarles, though, like many railroad towns, Sarles wouldn’t prosper like Edwinton, now Bismarck, and some of the bigger cities that popped up on a line. At one time, there was a public school, a grocery store, a bar and cafe, grain elevators, a barbershop, and gas stations. Sadly though, as time went on, the population began to dwindle. By the late 1980s, the schools had closed. In 1997, with the closing of the grocery store and the community cafe, the one time boom town was left without supplies available for the first time in more than 90 years.

Today, there are less than two dozen people who call Sarles home, though the community isn’t exactly a ghost town. There is a Veteran’s Memorial and a community pool, which is rare for a town this size.