I’ve joked before that I am collecting my hometown, a brick at a time. It’s not particularly serious, but I’ve got a couple loose bricks that came from demolishing jobs in downtown Fargo. My desire for the bricks comes from my admiration and memories of the buildings that the masonry came from. The AOUW Grand Lodge was where I worked for several years, and the Idelkope Building was where I bought my comics from a guy that looked kinda like Santa Claus. Everyone’s got their reasons, and I’ve got mine. It’s not like I’d ever be able to get an entire building, even in a full lifetime of brick-borrowing.

Keith Johnson has a personal reason to collect, too. In 1980, Keith’s son Lonnie passed away, and as a living tribute to his son Mr. Johnson began collecting and restoring his town.

Today, June 22nd 2008, Ayr, North Dakota celebrates the 125th anniversary of its establishment, shortly before statehood and shortly after the railroad arrived. At 2pm, a parade will crawl past Johnson’s collection. Adjoining the main street of town, a small dirt road passes between a number of small but nicely restored buildings. These are the objects of Keith Johnson’s collection.

The collection records more than just Lonnie’s life — Keith Johnson’s buildings are the core of his community’s history. The town’s original one-room schoolhouse is restored, including desks and a (mildly frightening) mannequin schoolteacher; outhouses are out back, but are sadly no longer available for public use. Those arriving to Ayr via rail would have disembarked at the Great Northern Depot, now no longer anywhere near the rail-line but still kept company by a Burlington Northern caboose. The Ayr Store Company was a place for provisions, but it is the ice cream shop and the barber that really made Ayr a modern ‘city’ hidden in central North Dakota (although I’m not sure these buildings are original to Ayr at all). The collection includes the original fire bell — a huge iron triangle, suitable for calling the cowpokes in for dinner, but far more purposeful to a remote rural community as a call for the fire volunteers. An Arthur (ND) firetruck sits nearby, not quite ready to leap into service if there were a fire. Our favorite was the gas station — a beautifully repaired and well-decorated canopy service station outfitted as a Mobil stop. You can see more pictures of Johnson’s buildings here.

The buildings are closed and locked (an appointment with Johnson can be arranged for a more detailed tour), but the windows give a good view of Johnson’s restoration. Each building is furnished inside and out with appropriate originals and replicas of period accountrements, from leaded shades on lamps to original signs and advertisements on the walls. While I wouldn’t call any of the vignettes a museum-quality display, that is hardly the purpose. Keith Johnson was one of the lucky few people with the resources and room to actually have a collection of buildings. There are real, functional small towns in North Dakota with fewer habitable buildings than Johnson’s collection contains, and the collection garnered a nomination from the North Dakota State Historical Society in 2007 for his work. Keith Johnson’s dedication and love for these old buildings makes his collection one of the funnest I’ve met, and his willingness to share it with visitors by eschewing fences and gates is a boon to people interested in the history of these rural communities.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, June 22nd, 2008 at 12:14 am and is filed under Uncategorized, collecting fyi, events, reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.