The past is an important part of who we are. AE2S employees Steve Burian, Richard Wagner, and Brian Bergantine worked to preserve a piece of the past with their work on the Hutmacher farm located in rural Dunn County.
The farm was built in the late 1920’s by Frank Hutmacher, using the materials in the surrounding hills. The sandstone prairie house was built in a style brought over from the Black Sea region of the Russian Ukraine, with stone held together with clay and straw mortar. The farm is unique in the fact that the house and the five outbuildings are all made out of stone. In every other site, other buildings were made out of wood.
The house was occupied until 1979, when Frank Hutmacher’s son Alex, moved to Dickinson. The house never had plumbing, a well for water, or heat other than a coal burning stove. It did, however, eventually have electricity.
The farmstead deteriorated over time, to the point of hovering on ruination. The floors, windows, and roofs of cottonwood beams, ash rafters woven with branches and a cover of straw and mud, had given way to time and weather.
Steve’s grandfather (and namesake) bought the farm and donated it to the Dunn County Historical Society in memory of his wife who had recently died prematurely from cancer, and the pioneers of the area, but the Society was unable to do all the necessary maintenance and deeded it back to the Burian family. Steve’s father, Arnold, deeded the farm to Preservation North Dakota in March of 2007 to ensure its preservation.
Since that time, Preservation North Dakota, aided by volunteer labor (including Steve Burian, Richard Wagner, and Brian Bergantine) has been working hard to bring the farm back to its former glory and preserve an important piece of the past.