The result is the historical society is as serious about looking forward as it is in looking back.

Seeing a need for a thrift store in Rolla, the historical society went into business in the lower level of the historic St. John senior center while investing in the building’s upkeep.

Historical Society President Becky Leonard of Rolla said the organization has used its nonprofit status to funnel benefits to its communities, and it hopes to do the same with a couple of large projects on the horizon.

In Dunseith, the historical society acquired the Victorian LaFrance house on Main Street and is seeking grants to restore it. Leonard said the business plan is to address the community’s need for housing by operating a boarding house. The property would be rented as workforce housing by tenants such as teachers, nurses or police as well as serving as temporary housing for people transitioning to permanent residency.

A portion of the Rolette County Historical Society’s museum in St. John is dedicated to artifacts in memory of the former San Haven State Hospital and tuberculosis sanatorium.

“We’re lacking motel units. We’re lacking other places for folks to live,” said Leonard, who also chairs Rolette County Housing Authority.

In its biggest lift, the historical society is seeking a state grant for a nearly $3 million agritourism project.

There’s been support from Dakota College at Bottineau (DCB), Bartlett Farms of Bottineau and Garden Dwellers Farm and Ranch of Souris. Other area counties have signed on with letters of support and the historical society has been working with North Central Planning Council in Devils Lake and Souris Basin Planning Council in Minot, along with Houston Engineering.

The project includes turning the historical Cote round barn, used for a dairy until about the 1960s, back into an old-style dairy operation, along with establishing a 54-site RV park, native plantings and wildlife viewing area around an existing pond.

Previous owners, Johnnie and Pat Meyer, passed the property to their daughter, Holly Wheeler, and Wheeler’s daughter, Angel Babcock of Alaska, reached out to the historical society about preserving the barn. The historical society arranged a purchase, Leonard said.

Coghlan Castle is a Rolette County viewing attraction. The local historical society is looking at additional repairs and interpretative features.

“It’s the age old question of ‘if not us, who’ and ‘if not now, when?’ So, we’re hoping that it’s the right opportunity, and we’re always looking at economic development as ‘strike while the iron’s hot,'” Leonard said.

The building will require some repairs, but the dairy artifacts are largely still intact, she said. The main floor would house the dairy, and a dairy museum would be established upstairs in the former dance hall.

Bartlett Farms, Bottineau, has been providing consulting and a vision for the farm portion of the project. Peter Bartlett said the attraction would be unique, having a story to tell and connecting visitors to North Dakota’s history.

“Bottineau and the upper central area had a lot of dairy, and the whole state did, but nobody is telling the story,” he said. “As the small farms are selling off and people are moving to town, nobody is preserving that. So I think the historical society is doing a good thing in wanting to keep the memories alive.”

Bartlett Farms would participate by offering demonstrations and hands-on activities at scheduled times from June through September to give visitors the flavor of a 1950s farm with cows to milk, eggs to gather and goats to tend. Bartlett said classes could be facilitated on topics such as raising backyard chickens or preserving food, and a farm store would be available.

Hector Peltier, top, and Lenny Peltier work on the exterior restoration of a caboose donated to the Rolette County Historical Society by BNSF, which had acquired it from Northern Pacific Railroad and repainted it with the BNSF logo.

The barn itself is structurally intact, with 20 milking stanchions and calf partitions on the first floor, Bartlett said.

“The upstairs is a really magnificent dome, and it’s got a double-layered hardwood floor that was installed for the purpose of community dances in the 1940s and ’50s, and it was used as a roller skating floor at that time as well,” he said.

Linda Burbidge, who has been coordinating DCB’s support for the project, said the college sees opportunities for student involvement and internships, particularly around the orchards and plantings.

“We thought it would also be a great opportunity for us to come out and either do some different learning experiences, whether it’s for the students or for the community,” she said. Opportunities exist for students studying agriculture, horticulture, natural resources, wildlife and possibly recreation management, she said.

“There’s just a lot that could be done,” she said.

A mural saluting veterans was painted for the Rolette County Historical Society Museum in St. John by Duane Peltier.

The historical society continues to fundraise for the purchase price and is seeking grants for various components of the project.

Meanwhile the society maintains its mission of preserving county history.

“We’ve taken on many deferred maintenance projects at the museum in St. John. We put new roofs on most of the buildings. We’re going to end up with a new fundraiser to replace the steel roof on the main museum building,” Leonard said. “So that’s going to take some focus within the next year or two.”

A $49,000 grant helped establish disability access into the main museum building, completed last April. This summer, exhibits were being moved back in and rearranged. The museum’s season runs through fall.

The St. John museum includes murals painted by Duane Peltier in salute to military veterans and in remembrance of the San Haven facility, a former state hospital and tuberculosis sanatorium that operated from 1912-1987 in the Turtle Mountains.

The museum displays hundreds of military uniforms from times of peace and war. It features a San Haven display, toy shop, cook car, schoolhouse. St. John immigration station, Great Northern Railroad artifacts and former Lutheran church. It includes the cabin of Dana Wright, an esteemed state historian, who lived for a time at St. John.

The museum also is being laid out to offer a village feel, with a dentist office, general store, dress and hat shop and vintage bar with local resident Weyburn Niewoehner’s collection of beer-related items. A Model A Ford Touring Car, obtained from the State Historical Society, will be a focus of the street scene, situated next to antique gas pumps.

Leonard said a Native American display is in the works. The historical society has been gifted an ox cart from Dan and Terrance Jerome along with many Cree family artifacts, she said.

Also in St. John, the historical society owns a Victorian cottage, used as a visitors center and supported by a bequest from the estate of the original family’s granddaughter. The original owners and builders, Fornate and Cedulie Martineau, had been famous merchants in the area. Fornate Martineau and his sons developed the first telephone system west of the Red River Valley. Martineau also was a high wire act performer and his wife was a North Dakota Mother of the Year.

In addition to the main museum in St. John, the historical society has been arranging for smaller, community-focused museums.

In Rolette, it acquired a former railroad building originally located in McCumber and invested in needed maintenance.

“We spent a good sum of money from a donation to do that work, and now it’s ready to go. The City of Rolette is paying electricity so that we can do new displays,” Leonard said. “It’s a beautiful building. It’s all pressed tin interior.”

The local caretaker, Dale Honsey, with his grandson Dalton Honsey and Hannah Follman, did the tin restoration and painting.

When historical society member Suzanne Weston purchased a colonial house in Rolla, she donated the property’s brick livery barn from the late 1800s to the historical society. It had been damaged by an automobile collision, but the historical society hired Koleman Gourneau to shore up the building and make repairs. It will house a small museum for Rolla artifacts.

The historical society also has plans to further spruce up Coghlan Castle, built between 1906 and 1909. Although the interior hasn’t been viewable since 2019 for safety reasons, the society is considering proposals for interior video and interpretative panels that can make a visit to the fieldstone farmhouse north of Rolla more of an experience, Leonard said.

With limited tax dollars available through the county, historical society members feel fortunate to have received grants, donations and gaming funds, along with additional support from Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa District 1 Tribal Councilman Craig Lunday and Blue Chip Financial, Leonard said.

Seeing dreams become reality also requires people.

“It takes a strong leader and a strong support system, but when it’s such a small area, a small community, a small group, it’s very easy to get beaten down, discouraged, so I understand why things were left to deteriorate and have deferred maintenance issues,” Leonad said. “It takes a lot to get people motivated and to get that funding in, so that you can do these things.”

Historical societies carry an image of a group of wealthy donors restoring former mansions, but the reality is volunteers who are in the trenches in hands-on labor, she said.

“They just all come together with a like mind. Not everybody shares the same passions for certain things. You just try to keep people motivated into what they enjoy and let them take the reins,” Leonard said.

Leonard recalls her father was a proponent of community projects and was her biggest supporter in her community efforts until his death in 2018. His past encouragement continues to motivate her.

Rolette County Historical Society’s other volunteers are just as resilient and determined, Leonard said.

“That’s what it takes,” she said.