When Mary Broderick Harris, 81, was a little girl in the early 1930s, she and her friends would sit on the front steps of a neighbor's grand house in northwest Mandan and wait, and wait some more.

Because they knew if they waited long enough, they'd probably get what they wanted.

Cora Walton Russell, inside of the house, would eventually get tired of the neighbor kids sitting on her steps and would tell her husband, Hoy Russell, founder of Mandan Creamery and Produce Co., to take them for a ride in his car.

That's what they wanted. A fun ride up the curvy Snake Road - that started just south of the Heart River Bridge and led up to the Mandan Experiment Station. Snake Road has since been straightened out and renamed Highway 6 - and the station since has been renamed the Northern Plains Agricultural Research Center.

And then, if the kids were really lucky, Russell would take them to his creamery - located where Central Market grocery store is now, 504 W. Main St. - for some ice cream.

These days, Harris can sit or stand or do anything else she wants on those steps, which are located at 201 Seventh Ave. N.W.

She bought the three-story Queen Anne-style home 18 years ago, wanting to do her part to save her childhood neighborhood.

She doesn't live at the circa-1904 house, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

A neighbor watches over it. Harris comes over to water flowers and check on things at the house that she now calls the "Tara House"because 10 of its 13 owners were of English-Irish heritage. Harris lives in another home in Bismarck. However, many of her things - from her own mother's vintage dresses, family pictures, art and artifacts, antique furniture, to her collection of things acquired during world travels - are in the Tara House. And on Sunday, they will be available for the public to view.

"It's really a treasure in Mandan," said Bill Engelter, a board member of the Mandan Historical Society. "We really don't have a museum to speak of. This is the closest (we've got)."

The society is putting on a free ice cream social, free lemonade, on the grounds from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday.

At 1:30 p.m., local Mandan musician Debi Rogers will perform 1800s folk and Celtic music. At 2:30 p.m., the Gary Miller Family, of Mandan, will perform music popular in Mandan's early day. To tour the house and its still mainly original carriage house with hayloft, a $4 donation to the historical society is suggested.

Research by two historical society members indicates that the Tara House was the second house on that lot.

In 1882, John Fogarty, a railroad agent, bought the lot from the Northern Pacific Railroad. In 1883, William Sullivan, who coordinated bridge construction for the railroad, and his wife, Mary Sullivan, built a house there.

In 1889, that home was sold to Lyman and Anna Cary, who would later move it to another area of Mandan.

Lyman Cary, a railroad land agent, also developed major portions of Mandan's downtown district. His wife was the daughter of James Clark, who was an early Mandan pharmacist and founder of Mandan Drug Store.

The Carys reportedly moved the house to the 300 block of North Third Avenue across from the First Presbyterian Church because Anna Cary wanted to participate more in her church's activities.

The second house, Tara House, was reportedly built in 1904 and bought by Stuart and Martha Dunlop, who lived in it for 10 years. The Russells then lived there from 1923 to 1971.

In addition to the Sunday event, the society is inviting the public to stop by its office at 406 W. Main St., which is open from 1 to 9 p.m. Monday and noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday. On display are such items as historical photos and copies of the Mandan Pioneer newspaper from 1920 to 1975.

For more information, call 663-7700.

(Reach reporter Virginia Grantier at 250-8254 or at virginia.grantier@;bismarcktribune.com.)