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Williams County, North Dakota

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

—newspaper titles

—digitized titles

10historic places

—earliest paper

1891formed

40,950pop. 2020

60cemeteries

—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 10 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1966; 3 are also National Historic Landmarks. Most listings are in or near Williston, Ray.

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 Williams titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

6 of 10 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

10 listed properties

Property	City	Type	Listed
Creaser Building	Williston	Building	2016
Fort Buford State Historic Site	Williston	Site	1975
Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site Historic District (Boundary Increase) NHL	Williston	Site	2025
Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site Historic District (Boundary Increase) NHL	Williston	Site	2025
Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site Historic District Additional Documentation) NHL	Williston	Site	1966
James Memorial Library	Williston	Building	1979
Old Armory	Williston	Building	1985
Old US Post Office	Williston	Building	1979
Ray Opera House	Ray	Building	1978
Williston High School	Williston	Building	2011

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

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Williams was formed in 1891 (1891-03-02) from all of BUFORD, all of FLANNERY.

WILLIAMS created from all of BUFORD and all of FLANNERY; BUFORD and FLANNERY eliminated. WILLIAMS (original, extinct) continued to exist until 8 November 1892 in another part of the state.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Williams County population from 1900 to 2020 (Census historical series).

1900	1920	1940	1950	1960	1980	2000	2020
1,530	17,980	16,315	16,442	22,051	22,237	19,761	40,950

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

National Park Service sites nearby

NPS

Park units within about 40 km of the county centroid (from NPS Public POIs; no API key).

Site	Type	Dist.
FOUS	Park unit	56.2 km

Source: NPS National Datasets / Public POIs. The NPS Developer API requires a free key and was not used.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

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

Cemeteries — 60 of 60 listed

Name	Lat	Lon
Alamo Cemetery	48.59704	-103.45
Bakken Cemetery	48.41623	-102.92236
Beaver Creek Lutheran Cemetery	48.17518	-103.02159
Bethany Cemetery	48.26917	-102.95675
Bethany Cemetery	48.56091	-103.57973
Bethany Valley Cemetery	48.40592	-103.38463
Bethel Cemetery	48.52626	-103.62468
Bethel Cemetery	48.56847	-103.23268
Bethel Lutheran Cemetery	48.40138	-103.72683
Bethesda Cemetery	48.4892	-103.6012
Buford Cemetery	48.01241	-103.9953
Corinth Cemetery	48.62588	-103.32082
Cow Creek Cemetery	48.31409	-103.82068
Dunkard Church Cemetery	48.34299	-103.23745
East Fork Cemetery	48.38791	-103.53794
Eastside Cemetery	48.39397	-102.92424
Epping Cemetery	48.26009	-103.35562
Faith Cemetery	48.40092	-103.62559
Fort Buford Cemetery	47.98362	-104.00315
German Cemetery	48.32777	-103.05957
Gladys Cemetery	48.50296	-103.81678
Grace Cemetery	48.63282	-103.19066
Grenora Cemetery	48.61862	-103.94519
Grong Cemetery	48.59669	-103.01657
Hanks Cemetery	48.61865	-103.79734
Hauge Cemetery	48.07527	-103.46499
Hauge Cemetery	48.50384	-103.51529
Hillside Cemetery	48.39106	-102.9418
Hillside Memory Gardens	48.16987	-103.60811
Lindahl Lutheran Cemetery	48.52266	-102.92855
Our Saviors Lutheran Cemetery	48.11156	-103.44246
Painted Woods Cemetery	48.15168	-103.82048
Rainbow Valley Lutheran Cemetery	48.48014	-103.23272
Riverview Cemetery	48.15141	-103.63853
Round Prairie Cemetery	48.16867	-103.972
Saint Boniface Cemetery	48.48855	-103.90891
Saint George Cemetery	48.29964	-103.80909
Saint Joseph Cemetery	48.15113	-103.64131
Saint Lucas Cemetery	48.25552	-103.92067
Saint Marys Cemetery	48.61789	-102.9289
Saint Michaels Cemetery	48.34797	-103.17895
Saint Olaf Cemetery	48.50697	-103.01704
Saint Paul Lutheran Cemetery	48.53249	-103.18644
Saint Paul Lutheran Cemetery	48.22793	-103.80685
Saint Petri Cemetery	48.41703	-103.90779
Scandia Cemetery	48.47512	-104.01583
Scandia Valley Cemetery	48.38982	-103.94971
Sharon Cemetery	48.604	-102.94075
Soine Family Cemetery	48.335	-103.19544
Springbrook Cemetery	48.25536	-103.46919
Stordahl Lutheran Cemetery	48.5614	-103.12407
Sunset Rest Cemetery	48.34306	-103.19101
Temple Cemetery	48.38737	-103.04792
Trenton Cemetery	48.07529	-103.8325
Trinity Lutheran Cemetery	48.29805	-102.94822
United Cemetery	48.38837	-102.94036
Westview Cemetery	48.0964	-104.00853
Wheelock Cemetery	48.28769	-103.26036
Williston Cemetery	48.27005	-103.89558
Zion Cemetery	48.61847	-102.92888

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 Williams County, North Dakota

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