This video is a 360° view of the interior of the Wickney House. When watching a 360° video on a computer, the viewing angle is changed by clicking on the video and dragging with the mouse. Enjoy the virtual tour!

Wickney House

Rural Northwood, North Dakota (1879)

Anders Vikne (Wickney) built the original 14-by-16-foot section of this house in 1879 on his homestead near Northwood, North Dakota. He returned to Allamakee County in Iowa to marry Berthe Hagen, the daughter of the farmer he worked for as an immigrant lad. The resemblance to the building tradition shared with the Egge-Koren and Haugan houses is obscured by the lean-to addition built about 1890. The balloon-frame structure, or two-by-four, construction was an innovation, doubtless owing to the scarcity of timber on the prairie. The choice to build a home of these modest dimensions was likely influenced as much by cultural expectations as by the cost and availability of building materials on the frontier.