Located in Bowman County, Griffin is situated about seven miles west of Bowman and six miles east of Rhame, North Dakota, on Highway 12. Griffin is an authentic ghost town with no residents.

Legends‘ reader Mark Griffin tells us that, according to North Dakota Place Names, the post office and Milwaukee Road railroad station were named Atkinson until February 10, 1908, when the name was changed to Griffin in honor of Henry T. Griffin, the railroad’s Assistant General Passenger Agent. According to the December 27, 1900, edition of The New York Times, “Henry T. Griffin has assumed the duties of Assistant General Passenger Agent of the Chicago, Milwaukee St. Paul Railway Company.”

Situated north of the railroad tracks that parallel the highway, this one-time community was primarily a business venture rather than a town, and it never had many residents. What it did have were some of the biggest stockyards in the county, along with several grain elevators, a depot, and a couple of section houses for the railroad workers. In 1911, the North Dakota Magazine reported that Griffin had a general store, lumberyard, and elevators, and was experiencing rapid growth. It may have also had a gas station at one time.

It was also home to a school for area children. In the late 19th century, school reformers urged rural school districts to reorganize their one-room schools into consolidated schools with multiple classrooms. Bowman County was one of the few in North Dakota to give this idea a serious trial, constructing four impressive rural consolidated schools during the early 1920s, including the one in Griffin, which was called the Atkinson School. Unfortunately, the population loss from the countryside in succeeding years doomed these consolidated rural schools just as surely as the one-room schools.

Today, Griffin is home to only the quickly deteriorating old school building, a boxcar, a barn, and a few other deteriorating buildings. According to local lore, the stockyards attracted cowboys, who often frequented the town, and allegedly, a few gunfights took place within the community. About two miles north of the town ran the old Yellowstone Trail, the first transcontinental automobile highway through the upper-tier states. Established in 1912, the old highway ran from Plymouth, Massachusetts, through Yellowstone National Park, and on to Seattle, Washington. This old road was marked in some areas with three-foot-tall stones painted yellow.

 

©Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated September 2025.

Also See:

Forts of North Dakota

Ghost Towns Across America

North Dakota Ghost Town Gallery

North Dakota Ghost Towns

North Dakota Main Page

See Sources.