Bergeson’s Homestead

Around 1869, Ole and Soren Bergeson, two brothers who had immigrated to America from Norway with their parents in 1851, built this house. Ole was one of the first settlers to homestead in Split Rock Township, where he and his wife, Bergitta, lived their lives and raised eight children. Over time, rooms were added to accommodate the growing family until the original house was encompassed within a much larger structure. During that expansion, the windows were widened and the wall heights were raised, then covered by sheetrock on the inside and stucco on the outside. The hand-hewn cottonwood log frame was inadvertently discovered in the mid-20th century while the old Bergeson homestead was being razed. Its dovetailed notch work and unusual use of relatively soft and perishable cottonwood timber make it a fine and distinctive example of pioneer construction, and the old log shell survives as an interesting relic of South Dakota's pioneer past.

South Dakota · United States