Thomas D. Campbell House facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Thomas D. Campbell House
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 Location in North Dakota
Location in the United States
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| Location | 2405 Belmont Rd., Grand Forks, North Dakota |
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| Area | less than one acre |
| Built | 1879 |
| Architectural style | Gothic Revival |
| NRHP reference No. | 87002010 |
| Added to NRHP | September 29, 1987 |
The Thomas D. Campbell House is a special historic home in Grand Forks, North Dakota. It was built in 1879 and shows off a unique style called Gothic Revival. This house is important because it belonged to Thomas D. Campbell, who became the biggest wheat farmer in the whole United States!
Today, the house is part of the Myra Museum. It is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places, which means it's a very important building worth protecting.
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What Makes the Campbell House Special?
The Thomas D. Campbell House started as a simple log cabin in 1879. Later, between 1881 and 1900, a bigger wooden part was added around the original cabin. This new part gave the house its fancy Gothic Revival look.
The house has pointed roofs called gables and its outside walls are covered with clapboard siding. You can see decorative wooden trim, like fancy lace, on the main front and side gables. There's even a cool pointed window on one side! A porch with decorative posts and arches stretches across the front. This house is the only building left from the Campbell family's original farm.
Inside the Historic Home
When you step inside the Thomas D. Campbell House, you'll find yourself in a museum! It's set up to look just like a family home from the early 1900s. You can still see the original log walls of the 1879 cabin from the inside. Even the hand-cut wooden beams in the loft are visible.
A Pioneer Home in Grand Forks
When the Campbell House was built, Grand Forks was just a tiny settlement. The house was one of only a few homes along the Red River. There were no other buildings nearby!
Building log homes was common back then because it was expensive to bring cut wood from places like Fargo. Many pioneers would build a simple log home first. Then, they would add to it or build a bigger house around it later. The Campbell House is a great example of this. It's also one of the only Gothic Revival farmhouses in the entire Red River Valley area of North Dakota.
Meet the Campbell Family
Thomas D. Campbell and his wife, Almira Richards Campbell, came from Scotland and Canada. They started their lives in the Red River Valley with a small farm. But their farm grew and grew! By 1898, they owned about 4,000 acres (about 16 square kilometers) of excellent farmland. As time went on, Mr. Campbell also became a successful real estate businessman in Grand Forks.
The "Wheat King"
The original log part of the house was the birthplace of their son, Thomas D. Campbell (1882–1966). He became very famous as the "Wheat King"! He owned huge amounts of land in Montana and New Mexico. At one point, he was the biggest wheat producer in the entire country.
General Campbell also served in both World War I and World War II. During World War II, he helped create a special firebomb called napalm. This was used a lot in the Pacific part of the war.
See also
- Camp Four, a place with historic wheat farming buildings on another Campbell Farm.
