Verendrye, North Dakota

Verendrye (also Falson) [gnis|1032639] is a ghost town in McHenry County, North Dakota, United States. It was formerly the headquarters of the Verendrye Electric Cooperative, which has since relocated to Velva. In 2007, two or three house foundations and the backless facade of an old two-story schoolhouse are all that remains of the town. Most of the town site has been taken over by a grain farmer's machine sheds.

The town was named after the earliest known European to tour the North Dakota prairies, a son of the French explorer Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de la Vérendrye. A monument to the later North West Company fur trader and explorer, David Thompson, erected by the Great Northern Railway in the 1920s, remains on a hilltop overlooking the former townsite.

The population of Verendrye in the 1930 United States Census was 130. [Federal Writers' Project, "North Dakota: A Guide to the Northern Prairie State" (Works Progress Administration, 1938), p. 274] In 2007, it appears to be zero. [cite web |url=http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/nd/verendre.html |title=Verendre |publisher=Ghosttowns.com |accessdate=2008-01-09]

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