The Argonne Triangle of Forgetfulness – a city that disappeared into the prairie (6 photos + 1 video)

This once-thriving community was abandoned around 1970.





Tucked modestly off an unmarked dirt road, the town of Argonne, South Dakota, lay deserted in the 1970s after its only school closed. Today, all that remains are a rusty sign, a dilapidated grain storage tower, and the impenetrable vault of a former bank.



This is what the school looked like

This settlement was founded in 1886 by Dr. Louis Gotthelf, a Prussian immigrant. He named it St. Marys, and life here was expected to flourish along the Northwestern Railroad line. But the town's growth stalled almost immediately. Gotthelf's family was among the first to leave, moving to Parker, South Dakota, in 1889.





In 1920, Saint-Marys was renamed Argonne in memory of the soldiers who died in France during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. At the time, about a hundred people lived there, but by 1970, that number had dwindled to just eight.



Today, it's hard to find a place that feels as isolated and forgotten as Argonne. And yet, this wilderness is just a fifteen-minute drive from the county seat, which has a population of nine hundred.



It may be a cliché to talk about the haunted, melancholy beauty of ghost towns. But these words perfectly describe the Argonne, with its half-forested triangular grove slowly consuming the remains of this forgotten place.