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Pierce County, North Dakota

Historic newspapers, landmarks, and county history layers for genealogists and local historians.

—newspaper titles

—digitized titles

7historic places

—earliest paper

1887formed

3,990pop. 2020

23cemeteries

—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 7 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1980. Most listings are in or near Rugby, Balta, Berwick.

Summary generated automatically from the source data on this page.

Newspapers

Library of Congress

Newspaper directory data for North Dakota is not yet loaded on this site. Browse Pierce titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

4 of 7 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

7 listed properties

Property	City	Type	Listed
Great Northern Passenger Depot	Rugby	Building	1991
Old Mt. Carmel Cemetery, Wrought-Iron Cross Site	Balta	Site	1989
Pierce County Courthouse	Rugby	Building	1980
St. Anselm's Cemetery, Wrought-Iron Cross Site	Berwick	Site	1989
St. Mathias Cemetery, Wrought-Iron Cross Site	Orrin	Site	1989
St. Paul's Episcopal Church	Rugby	Building	1992
US Post Office-Rugby	Rugby	Building	1989

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Property links open NRHP nomination files at the National Archives.

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Pierce was formed in 1887 (1887-03-11) from Bottineau, McHENRY, Rolette, all of DE SMET (Dakota Territory, extinct).

PIERCE created by Dakota Territory in present North Dakota from BOTTINEAU, McHENRY, ROLETTE, and all of DE SMET (Dakota Territory, extinct).

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Pierce County population from 1890 to 2020 (Census historical series).

1890	1900	1920	1940	1950	1960	1980	2000	2020
905	4,765	9,283	9,208	8,326	7,394	6,166	4,675	3,990

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau historical county population (Forstall 1790–1990) and public-domain / CC0 county population series through 2020.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

23 cemeteries and 0 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 23 of 23 listed

Name	Lat	Lon
Bethel Lutheran Cemetery	48.30033	-100.04452
East Barton Lutheran Cemetery	48.50129	-100.17911
Eden Valley Lutheran Cemetery	47.90584	-99.92051
Highland Lutheran Cemetery	48.26735	-99.87724
Hurricane Lake Cemetery	48.41489	-99.53907
Little Flower Cemetery	48.36943	-99.97541
Marker Lutheran Cemetery	48.42894	-100.18787
Mount Carmel Cemetery	48.1661	-100.04541
Persilla Watts Cemetery	48.36799	-100.01139
Reform Cemetery	47.86328	-100.07452
Sacred Heart Catholic Cemetery	48.09405	-100.16703
Saint Anselm Cemetery	48.26163	-100.21567
Saint Anthony Cemetery	47.86134	-99.87768
Saint Johannes Evangelical Lutheran Cemetery	47.85081	-100.12379
Saint Maria's Strasburg Cemetery	47.94139	-99.92206
Saint Mathis Cemetery	48.07147	-100.17004
Southwest Barton Cemetery	48.4548	-100.23217
Trinity Cemetery	48.16581	-99.8873
Tunbridge Lutheran Cemetery	48.3474	-100.10772
West Barton Lutheran Cemetery	48.50121	-100.20089
Wolford Cemetery	48.49587	-99.71038
Zion Cemetery	48.53019	-100.05984
Zion Lutheran Cemetery	48.31135	-100.15404

Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain). Cemeteries from the 2021 NationalFile archive; historical places from GNIS HistoricalFeatures topical extract.

Historical markers

HMdb link

Marker text and photos from the Historical Marker Database (HMdb) are not embedded here. HMdb allows non-commercial reuse with attribution, but commercial/compensated use needs written permission; this is a commercial site, so we only link out.

Search HMdb for Pierce County, North Dakota

Terms: hmdb.org/copyright.asp. Linking is encouraged by HMdb.