While the scenery is superior along the Hwy-1806 detour, the trek south of Bismarck along US-83 is redeemed by one totally unique Road Trip destination: the Ludwig Welk Farmstead (daily in summer, by appointment rest of year; $4; 701/336-7687), boyhood home of Lawrence Welk. Located a mile north of the town of Strasburg, then 2.5 miles west from US-83 following well-signed dirt roads, this is the preserved homestead where the world-famous band leader and accordion player was born in 1903.
Though the Lawrence Welk connection is the main draw for most visitors, the farm is intended as a memorial to his parents, who as part of an exodus of Bavarian-born Catholic farmers fled the Ukraine during the 1870s and 1880s when exemptions from military service were threatened. The promise of land brought the Welks to North Dakota in the 1890s. The clapboard house that stands today began as a sod house—the mud walls can still be seen in places—and is now full of odds and ends of furniture and memorabilia donated by the Welk family, who still own the place. Hand tools, a windmill, and farming implements are arranged around the yard, while in the hayloft a mannequin dressed as young Lawrence squeezes out polkas on the accordion—apparently, his early playing was so bad that he was banned from practicing in the house, though now his recordings are broadcast nonstop from a M*A*S*H-like speaker system strung around the grounds.
Much of southern North Dakota is still predominantly populated by descendants of the original wave of these immigrant “Germans from Russia” who homesteaded the region in the 1890s. Their influence is clearly apparent in the town of Linton (pop. 1,410), on US-83 18 miles north of the Welk homestead, where the Model Bakery (701/254-4687), at 117 N. Broadway, bakes up delicious, creamy custard kuchen and Germanic cakes and cookies Tuesday–Friday, while in Strasburg (pop. 600), Welk’s parents are buried in the cemetery behind the absolutely huge Catholic church that dwarfs the tiny town.
Both Linton and Strasburg also have the only-in-North-Dakota attractions of what must be the world’s smallest bowling alleys: One is tucked away in back of the Linton Cafe (701/254-9077) at 105 N. Broadway, while Strasburg’s four-laner is behind the Pin Palace Cafe at 714 Main Street (701/336-9616).
