Tracker Pixel for Entry

​Allen Sprenger’s Sculptures along Highway 49

Arts | April 3rd, 2019

Sprenger sculptures - photograph by Sabrina Hornung

As you drive the stretch of Highway 49 between Glen Ullin and Elgin, you’ll experience a variety of land features. You’ll see rolling hills, open fields, and great expanses of pasture land surrounded by barbed wire fences and curious cattle. Glorious buttes and cut banks of the area surround and contain the Heart Butte Dam. To say it’s a breathtaking view is an understatement.

Highway 49 is dotted by a few farmsteads and grain bins as one would expect from a state with such a strong agricultural backbone, but one part of the drive caught me pleasantly surprised as I found myself rubbernecking and spinning a U-turn on the lonely highway. There was a grouping of three grain bins surrounded by a barbed wire fence--which isn’t unusual, but the first bin was painted with an American flag and the last was painted with a Lutheran flag and the fence was lined with a variety of whimsical life-size salvaged metal sculptures.

The pieces started with a small man in a large hat riding a big wheel bike with an American flag waving behind him and ended with a long frame bike with two adults and a child riding it, all wearing cowboy hats because--what else would you wear in western North Dakota? The two bike sculptures bookended one piece that looked as if it were made from salvaged pipe or possibly metal framework that spelled out “God Bless America,” and there were two metal signs one with a rainbow that read “GOD’S PROMISE” in stenciled letters, while the other was a landscape triptych depicting a cross with vertical lettering that read “CIRIS” on one panel and a setting sun in the next. At the very south point of the work stood a large rock that was hand painted and read “Stone Church 1 Mile.”

Allen Sprenger, 90, is the man behind the artwork. Though Sprenger was unable to talk about his work due to illness, I had the opportunity to speak to his son and caretaker Dwight Sprenger. He said the work was created around 1999-2000 and that his father was a self-taught artist who farmed most of his life. He went on to say, “There are all kinds of things that a person comes up with when you repair your equipment and buildings and things like that--it’s practicing what you’re thinking.”

The work was created in the summer months and came as quite the surprise to Dwight. Allen exercised his creative bone later on in life and added a bit of whimsy to rural Grant county motorists.

The Stone Church was significant to Sprenger because his grandfather had gone there years ago but Dwight had no answer to the significance of the bicycles. He said, “It’s not that I won’t tell you--it’s that I can’t tell you. There’s a little bit of a difference.”

Recently in:

By Alicia Underlee Nelsonalicia@hpr1.com Ten North Dakota communities will participate in the nationwide No Kings Day of Peaceful Action on October 18. The grassroots movement is a nonviolent protest against President Trump’s…

By Kooper Shagenakoopershagena@gmail.com One night, Jane Linde Capistran, associate conductor of the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra, sat and drank wine with her friends: “Jennifer Tackling, the associate concertmaster, and…

Friday, October 31, 5-9 p.m.Ziti’s Italian American Restaurant, 3150 Sheyenne St., Suite 170, West FargoSavor a delectable five course meal with beverage pairings. (Nonalcoholic beverages are available upon request, but must be…

By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.com At the end of September, downtown Fargo said goodbye to another old friend; the Spirit Room closed its doors, marking the end of an era. The Spirit Room room has been a fixture downtown for the…

By Ed Raymondfargogadfly@gmail.comWill we be banging or whimpering at the end of the American empire?T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men” accurately portrays the end of most empires in his first lines: “We are the hollow men/…

By Rick Gionrickgion@gmail.com Holiday wine shopping shouldn’t have to be complicated. But unfortunately it can cause unneeded anxiety due to an overabundance of choices. Don’t fret my friends, we once again have you covered…

By Rick Gion and Nichole Hensenrickgion@gmail.com The wait is finally over. Those who have visited Nichole’s Fine Pastry & Cafe lately know about the recent major additions and renovations that have taken place over the past…

By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.com Dakotah Faye is a hip-hop artist from Minot, North Dakota, and he’s had a busy year. He’s released two albums. This summer he opened for Tech N9ne in Sturgis and will be opening for Bone…

By Greg Carlsongregcarlson1@gmail.com Dream-factory documentarian Alexandre O. Philippe connects with a Hollywood legend in “Kim Novak’s Vertigo,” the latest in a series of features exploring the filmmaker’s many…

By HPR staffsubmit@hpr1.com Mark the first weekend of October on your calendar. It’s the weekend of the Studio Crawl, which takes us all on a wonderful, metro-wide tour of our talented (and often wacky) arts community. On October…

Press release“Shakespeare with a sharpened edge.” To launch its 2025 – 2026 season, Theatre NDSU is thrilled to team up with Moorhead-based organization Theatre B to perform a co-production of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and…

By Annie Prafckeannieprafcke@gmail.com AUSTIN, Texas – As a Chinese-American, connecting to my culture through food is essential, and no dish brings me back to my mother’s kitchen quite like hotdish. Yes, you heard me right –…

By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.comNew Jamestown Brewery Serves up Local FlavorThere’s something delicious brewing out here on the prairie and it just so happens to be the newest brewery west of the Red River and east of the…

By Ellie Liveranieli.liverani.ra@gmail.com When we are sick, all we want is a cure. You go to the doctor, they give you a pill, you take it for a bit, then you are cured. It happens. But unfortunately, it is not always the case. …

By Alicia Underlee NelsonProtests against President Trump’s policies and the cuts made by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are planned across North Dakota and western Minnesota Friday, April 4 and…

By Vern Thompsonvern.thompson@rocketmail.comMoral accountability and the crisis of leadership  As a recovering person living one day at a time for the last 35 years, I have learned not to judge others because I have not walked in…