Lost in the flood: MHA Interpretive Center honors Elbowoods in new exhibit

The MHA Interpretive Center in New Town, North Dakota, is located near the shore of Lake Sakakawea. The flooded town of Elbowoods lies some 70 miles southeast of the center. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers deliberately flooded Elbowoods and other towns along the Missouri River in the 1950s with the creation of the Garrison Dam. About 80 percent of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara people had to relocate after their home sites were flooded.

A new exhibit at the Interpretive Center tells the story of Elbowoods — its history, flooding and recovery — through pictures and memories of the tribal citizens who once called the town home.

Kelsey Jacobson, the gallery curator, conceived the Elbowoods project two years ago.

“We had been asked by elders, ‘Make sure that story gets told, so that it doesn’t get forgotten,’” she said. “It’s a painful story but it’s one that has to be told.”

The gallery walks through the history of Elbowoods, which was established in the early 1890s along the Missouri. The river provided the town with rich soil, perfect for growing fruits and vegetables, which is evident in the abnormally large carrots in the archive photo. Almost every household had its own garden, said Jacobson, and not your average, backyard raised planter box garden. A family could live off their harvest and often would.

Along with produce, townspeople raised and slaughtered their own livestock and mined their own coal at a small dig site at the edge of town. They had their own school with a champion basketball team, a church, a post office and a hospital.

The people in Elbowoods were self-sufficient. One elder said all they had to get from out of town was coffee, Jacobson told Buffalo’s Fire.

As you walk through the gallery, stories about the thriving town shift to the somber tale of the flooding. Delphine Baker, Interpretive Center director, said her dad was born in Elbowoods and would tell her stories about what that time was like.

“They’d park over the hill of Elbowoods and watch their hometown get flooded,” she said. “If New Town wasn’t here when I was growing up, if it went away, I’d be like, ‘Where do I belong?’”

The gallery illustrates the rapid onset of the flooding. Some people were given a day’s notice to pack up all their belongings and leave. Jacobson said one family had to leave their laundry drying on clothes lines outside.

Uprooting one’s life on such short notice left deep scars on the community, said Baker, but instead of burying that trauma, “We want people to talk through it.”

Zane Baker, collections manager at the Interpretive Center, said that the center and the gallery create a space for people to reflect on the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara history.

“It’s all the good. It’s all the bad. It’s real,” he said. “There’s a lot of resiliency in our people and who we are today. And without these stories, without these lessons, who are we?”

Elbowoods can feel like a fictional Atlantis, said Jacobson, but hearing stories told by elders who lived there 75 years ago and seeing pictures of real people who called the town home makes Elbowoods feel close.

The gallery is open to the public until September 2026.