Overview

The town of Balfour, North Dakota, was founded in 1899 when the Soo Railroad was extended through the area. Named after the British Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour, Balfour had a peak population of 399 in 1910.

Balfour is home to numerous abandoned structures, like the former post office that opened in 1899, two churches, an old bank, a fire station, and jail, and most predominantly, the Old Balfour School. There was another school in Balfour, built between 1899 and 1910, but not much information on the old school is known, nor is it still standing. As the years pass and nature takes over the town, Balfour is left with more abandoned structures than occupied ones. According to the United States Census Bureau, Balfour only has 15 residents as of 2023, a noticeable decline from 27 only 4 years prior.

Exploration

For this adventure, my mom helped me record video footage for an upcoming YouTube video that's a continuation of this blog post that will air next month, so stay tuned for that! While she was holding the video camera, I captured everything else on film. I used my professor's Yashica TLR camera on 120 mm film and my Nikon N60 on 35 mm film. These photos were taken back in October 2024 for a project in my film photography class.

When we first pulled into Balfour, we were greeted by people who were curious as to what we were up to. Naturally, I asked them a few questions regarding the town. Because I grew up in the area, I knew the lady as she was a substitute teacher who filled in on our classes numerous times when I was in elementary school. She used to teach at the Balfour school before it closed down in 1979. In 1980, it was auctioned off and was sold to a lady who wanted to turn it into a bed and breakfast. This unfortunately never happened due to budget issues and was sold again to a man who used the school as storage and for other personal use. It now sits empty and run down, with the entire roof and third floor caved in. 

After getting footage of the Balfour school, we ran out of daylight and had to return the next day to get the remainder of the footage I wanted.

When I was developing my film following the trip, an entire roll of 35mm film had light leak damage, so only a few photos turned out, and the rest did not. For this section of the blog post, I will include some of the photos I got from my digital camera that I brought with me for backup.

We also made some cool discoveries around the town.

Conclusion

Have you ever been to Balfour? If I got any of the information wrong in this blog post, please let me know so that I can correct it right away! You can do so by reaching out to me here.

I was thrilled to finally go out and explore the ghost towns of my home state, and I'm excited to show you guys more that I have in the works. I hope to continue this series and keep posting about it regularly, but it's not easy to make. Information on abandoned towns is scarce, and finding people who are willing to share information is even harder. I'm thankful that we were able to grab additional information from some Balfour townspeople who were very friendly. If you have any recommendations for places I should visit in the future, let me know!

I would like to shout out the Ghosts of North Dakota blog for their information on the town that helped me draft this post. Their blog, which also covers ND ghost towns, does an incredible job detailing the history of many notable places that are lost to time. If you liked what you saw in this post, I would recommend going and checking them out.

I'm Sadie Lynn, and thank you for reading this edition of Photog with a Blog. Until next time, bye guys!