A labor of love: Rainbow Gardens diorama goes on display at Foster County Museum

There's something hot off the press at the Foster County Museum. The 3D printing press, that is.

A 4-by-8 foot replica of Carrington's Rainbow Gardens, as it was in the 1930s, arrived at the Foster County Museum on Wednesday, June 21, just in time for the 91st Annual Foster County Fair.

The Independent got a close-up view of the impressive diorama just a couple hours after it arrived thanks to Foster County Historical Society board member Mike Larson.

It was built by Bill Cochran, owner of BridgeTown Imprints in Valley City, N.D.

Larson perused archives of the Foster County Independent to glean as much information about Rainbow Gardens as he could. The searchable digital archives, available at carringtonlibrary.org, made that work a lot easier, he said.

The diorama is a time-lapse of sorts, as it incorporates features of the garden that were built at different times over a decade or more. It shows the Rainbow Gardens as it was in the 1930s, as imagined by its original owner, Harry Hayashi.

Hayashi "imported" rock from Minneapolis, which he hauled in by the carload. He planted new trees every year in the beginning, due to winter kill. Earlier photos of the Gardens showed bonsai-type trees that did not survive in the harsh North Dakota conditions.

The open-air bowery oak floor was the dancing surface in the spring of 1931, when the grand opening was held for Rainbow Gardens. The cafe and ballroom were built a few years later, in 1934.

The kiddie pool changed sizes more than once, Larson said. When it was ultimately built in the late 1930s, it was a lot smaller than the original plan as it appeared in newspaper articles.

There's even a model of Harry's traveling kitchen bungalow, which started when he was the proprietor of the Hotel Cafe. It was capable of seating about eight people and Harry brought it to golf tournaments and other events in the community in the 1920s. When Rainbow Gardens was built, Harry's bungalow provided refreshments for the kids at the Rainbow Gardens pool.

There were plans for a miniature golf course but it never materialized, another tidbit Larson discovered in his research of past editions of the Foster County Independent.

The Rainbow Gardens was even featured on a U.S. Postal Service Air Mail stamp in 1936.

There is a postcard in the Foster County Museum bearing the stamp. A special plane arrived in Carrington to pick up the Air Mail, Larson said.

There is a wealth of history on the Rainbow Gardens available at the Foster County Museum, and the images and articles, stories and artifacts there helped the diorama's creator, Bill Cochran, bring incredible detail to the piece.

Cochran is a multimedia artist and maker who has a variety of projects in his portfolio. His day job, the storefront he has maintained in Valley City for the past 26 years, is BridgeTown Imprints. He and his team do screen printing, embroidery, vinyl graphics, vehicle graphics and more. There's also a gallery where Cochran and other artists display their work.

The diorama build was a "hobby" project for Cochran, one of many obscure artistic creations he's completed over the years. That division is known as BridgeTown Steam Works.

He's a mural painter and steampunk artist too. The Peggy Lee mural he created on the north wall of the historic Rudolph Hotel in Valley City was dedicated on June 16. Lee's granddaughter, Holly Foster Wells, was in town for the dedication.

He documents his projects on video, and his YouTube Channel, @bridgetownsteamworks7580, is filled with random creations.

Cochran is working on a series of videos about the making of the Rainbow Gardens diorama. The first episode, which shows how the cabins were built, was uploaded last week. Search "BridgeTown Steam Works Valley City" on YouTube.

A Moorhead, Minn., native and son of a history teacher and a musician, he said that studying history and learning to play the piano were the two things he was required to do growing up.

He enjoyed modeling as a kid, and pursued graphic arts in his college days.

Cochran has used a lot of balsa wood, plastic sheeting and wooden dowels in previous modeling projects.

He has also used a method known as "kit bashing," where a creator will take parts from different model kits and use them "not as the directions say but as you want to," he explains.

His methods and workflow have changed dramatically in recent years, however, with the introduction of 3D printing.

"I can create a part on the computer and just 3D print it," he said.

For example, all the windows and doors for the Rainbow Gardens diorama were built from scratch using digital graphics and 3D printing.

He also uses a Cricut cutter to grind out pieces, and did an immense amount of gluing and painting to put it all together.

"I'm pretty happy with how it turned out," Cochran said. "It's made me much more interested in the history of Carrington."

The idea for the diorama started with Thomas Hayashi, son of Harry Jr., who spent some time in Carrington before his death in early 2022. It was Hayashi who first met with Cochran and shared images of the Rainbow Gardens. Cochran produced an early diorama of one of the cabins for Hayashi. That first cabin creation is also on display at the museum, although it has a few mistakes, Cochran noted.

After Thomas Hayashi died, it was a "unanimous decision" by the Foster County Historical Society that the diorama project would be completed. They sought permission from his mother and brother to continue, and the funding came from a generous benefactor that wanted to see the diorama come to fruition, Larson said.

Watch for a video to come of the diorama's creation, to include behind-the-scenes footage of the build, with a narrative history in the background.

The museum is open Sundays from 1-4 p.m. or by appointment. To schedule an appointment, call Cathy at 701-653-5054, Mike at 701-650-1392, Kim at 701-660-0271 or Janice at 701-650-1850.