Treasure in the Well — Nelson County

Nelson County homesteads along the Red River were abandoned during drought cycles, railroad bypasses, and farm foreclosures in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries — a classic setting for well-cache folklore. The Rocker Box Nelson County compilation places one million dollars in gold in a filled-in well at a vanished farmstead, citing Buried Treasures of the Great Plains. Jameson preserves the tale in his North Dakota chapter. Filled hand-dug wells are difficult to locate after decades of plowing and drainage tile. Coordinates approximate farmland near Lakota in Nelson County.