Verendrye is a ghost town

Ghost town

A ghost town is an abandoned town or city. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed, or due to natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, or nuclear disasters...

 in McHenry County

McHenry County, North Dakota

-National protected areas:*Cottonwood Lake National Wildlife Refuge*J. Clark Salyer National Wildlife Refuge *Wintering River National Wildlife Refuge-Demographics:...

, North Dakota

North Dakota

North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The Verendrye Electric Cooperative

Verendrye Electric Cooperative

Verendrye Electric Cooperative is a public utility cooperative based in Velva, North Dakota, but also has a service center in Minot. It serves rural consumers across a seven-county area in north central North Dakota, but the bulk of its service area lies within Ward and McHenry counties...

 was established here in 1939 but relocated to Velva

Velva, North Dakota

As of the census of 2000, there were 1,049 people, 436 households, and 275 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,359.7 people per square mile . There were 483 housing units at an average density of 626.1 per square mile . The racial makeup of the city was 99.33% White, 0.10%...

 within a couple years. By 2007, the remnants of the town amounted to two or three house foundations and the backless facade of an old two-story schoolhouse. Most of the town site has been taken over by a grain farmer's machine sheds.

The town was named after the earliest known European to tour the North Dakota prairies, a son of the French-Canadian explorer Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de La Vérendrye. A monument to the later North West Company

North West Company

The North West Company was a fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in what was to become Western Canada...

 fur trader and explorer, David Thompson

David Thompson (explorer)

David Thompson was an English-Canadian fur trader, surveyor, and map-maker, known to some native peoples as "Koo-Koo-Sint" or "the Stargazer"...

, erected by the Great Northern Railway in the 1920s, remains on a hilltop overlooking the former townsite.

The population of Verendrye in the 1930 United States Census was 130. In 2007, it appears to be zero.