Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota

From Yankton to Bismarck

When Congress created Dakota Territory in 1861, its capital was Yankton, in the far southeastern corner of the territory, in what is now South Dakota. In 1883 a capital commission chose Bismarck instead, and Governor Nehemiah Ordway moved the seat of government and the territorial offices there that year. A capitol was already going up in Bismarck in 1883; its cornerstone was laid that September, and the first territorial legislature to meet in Bismarck convened in January 1885.

A state capitol by default

When Dakota Territory was divided and both halves became states on November 2, 1889, the territorial capitol in Bismarck simply became North Dakota’s state capitol. South Dakota built its own at Pierre.

The 1930 fire

The first capitol was a dark-brick building on a hill. Early on Sunday morning, December 28, 1930, a janitor saw flames coming from the Senate chamber, and the building burned. The state decided to rebuild on the same grounds rather than move, and the 1931 legislature set aside $2,000,000 for a new capitol.

Shafer’s silo

The new building broke with tradition. Designed by the Chicago firm of Holabird and Root with the North Dakota architects Joseph Bell DeRemer and William Kurke, it is an Art Deco office tower, given by the State Historical Society as 18 stories, with the two legislative chambers set off to one side and joined to the tower by Memorial Hall. Critics at the time mocked it as “Shafer’s silo,” after Governor George Shafer.

It was finished in late 1934, in the middle of the Depression, slightly under budget, at $1,984,488.26.

Visiting

The Capitol offers guided and self-guided tours, and an observation deck gives a 360-degree view of Bismarck and Mandan. See North Dakota Tourism for details.