Slope County, North Dakota has just two towns, but this sparse part of the prairie once had more. DeSart was one of them. Ora and Anna DeSart homesteaded in the area southeast of Amidon in 1905. They had nine children. Two died as babies. The DeSarts had come from Iowa, from a Civil War family. Ora DeSart had tried to join the Union Army at age 12, but was rejected. He had nine brothers and half-brothers who served in the war.
The town of DeSart had its roots in the farm post office that Ora DeSart established on this date in 1906 and named after himself. In 1911, Postmaster DeSart moved his post office four miles to the southeast. Up sprang a little town. The railroad was supposed to go through DeSart, which attracted new businesses and people – but it was nearby Marmarth that boomed as the railroad town.
About 75 people lived in DeSart at its peak in nineteen twenty. Ora DeSart’s post office established two rural routes. The town had a store, bank and dance hall. July 17 was designated as DeSart Day with a parade, horse races, ball games and dancing.
Ora DeSart was an early mover and shaker, and known as a speaker and a champion of local issues. He traveled all over Slope County to speak at public meetings, and he even advocated for the town of Bessie to become the county seat over Amidon. At one point, Amidon was the smallest county seat in the nation with about 20 residents. Ora DeSart died in 1916 in Sioux Falls after surgery for cancer.
The town of DeSart, North Dakota, passed into history in the decades that followed. By 1960, only six people lived in DeSart. The post office closed in 1955, with mail sent to Reeder, North Dakota. One of the last visible reminders of DeSart is its cemetery, out along a dirt road south of Amidon and New England.
Dakota Datebook by Jack Dura
Sources:
Slopa Saga Committee. (1976). Slope Saga. Bowman County Pioneer Print: Bowman, ND
Wick, D.A. (1989). North Dakota place names. Bismarck, ND: Prairie House
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