August 6, 2024. Bismarck, North Dakota. North Dakota has been one of my favorite states so far. Certainly in the top ten. Miles and miles of farmland with green bean plants and blooming yellow sunflower fields juxtaposed with acres of white wheat. Corn, beans, and many other crops fill the landscape along with the Enchanted Highway, the world’s largest buffalo, the world’s largest Holstein cow, and the Theodore Roosevelt National Park which we will visit later this week. The weather is beautiful in the summertime, with an occasional shower to drop the temperatures below 60 degrees. One young cashier said he couldn’t even bring out the snowmobile during last year’s mild winter. (I found that hard to believe.) Small towns built this state on the backs of hardworking Americans. I found some interesting statistics on agriculture in the state. Covid must have been good for this state. North Dakota produced 1.34 billion pounds of sunflowers in 2020, a 79% jump from 2019.
That’s a lot of farms and ranches. However, by comparison, farms encompass 125 million acres of land in Texas. This doesn’t include the ranches with livestock encompassing 708.6 million acres of Texas land (USDA, 2023). Did you catch that? 😳😳😳
On to the State Capitol . . .
The State Capitol is quite unique, and well known for such. It has a rich history and architectural nuances, so much that I had to take some notes to remember even a smidgen of what we learned on the tour. The building was built during the depression era with WPA workers for a total cost of $2 million, in the early 1930s.
The original building (built in 1883-84, in the Romanesque Revival style) was destroyed in a fire in 1930. The fire was apparently caused by some oily rags stored in a cleaning closet with combustible chemicals. No one noticed the fire until someone came to work the next morning. By then it was too far gone. They replaced it with the current, more modern skyscraper rather than replicating the same style.
Fun Facts. The land was originally donated by the railroad company. The Capitol was known as the “Capitol on the Prairie,” as it was a building standing tall in the middle of the prairie, several miles from the town of Bismarck; a trolly was built to transport people from the city of Bismarck to the lonely Capitol building. Of course, now it is surrounded by bustling activity, and we could see it from every turn in town. The current building was a skyscraper by the day’s standards and is still North Dakota’s tallest building, although technically it doesn’t meet current “skyscraper rules.”
Louis L’Amour, Tim’s favorite picture in the hall. The author sold 50 million books at such a rate to become known as the fastest selling novelist in America. He’s from Jamestown North Dakota, where we stopped a few days ago. I don’t know if you can zoom in to see the plaque, but in addition to writing about the wild west he had an interesting life.
Fun Fact. North and South Dakota were divided at the same time they were granted statehood, so no one really knows which was 39th and which was 40th. They decided to list them alphabetically, hence North Dakota is named the 39th state and South Dakota was 40th.
This is the Great Seal of North Dakota, depicting various agricultural activities. There are 42 stars because they didn’t know when North Dakota would become a state. It was an educated guess. There were 42 states by the end of the year, so they felt justified in leaving it.
The state Capitol is where Art Deco architectural style and prairie art intersect. Our tour guide pointed out some features on the first floor hallway, where the main entrance used to be. It is designed in Art Deco style fashioned after King Tut’s tomb, prairie-themed chandeliers that resemble the tops of wheat stalks (upside down), and the painstaking detail of the wooden walls in which the grain was perfectly matched all the way up for a consistent flow from floor to ceiling.
There are Egyptian influences in the lotus flower light fixtures, accents, sculptures and more.
Prairie themes are found in North Dakota history carved into the turnstile and elevator doors by Edgar Miller, famed artist. His legacy page suggests, “The North Dakota State Capitol is one of Miller’s most extensive and remote art installation commissions.”
The prairie is represented in the ceilings of the chambers, with lights to mimic the sun (senate), moon and stars (house). These nuances are surrounded by a variety of irreplaceable wood from all over the world.
Fun Fact. Historically, the Senate typically has red carpet, while the House of Representatives has blue.
Another Fun Fact. The docent was leading a tour of 2nd graders recently. When they went into the House of Representatives she asked if anyone knew what the ceiling looked like, hoping their tour of the Senate was helpful. One little girl piped up and exclaimed, “WIFI signal!” 😂😂🤣🤣🤪🤪😳😳 Someone give that girl an oatmeal and sunflower cookie! 🤦♀️
My woodworking friends will enjoy this one; we discovered a rare and whimsical wood on the first floor. It’s in the private entrance to the Secretary of State, nicknamed the “Monkey Room,” after a bright child thought the two dots looked like eyes, shapes of monkeys and other animals seen in the wood. It’s a rare form of California walnut, the rarest of all wood seen in the Capitol building. This is probably the only place in the world one can actually see it, and if we’ve seen it here we will likely never see it again.
Our tour guide’s name is Cindy, incidentally.
Apparently this wood was delivered by accident to the Capitol, but no one could determine who it was meant for. When they tried to return it, they were told to just keep it because of the cost of shipping. (It was during the Great Depression, of course.) We were on the tour so we were fortunate to see it up close and touch it, in the private entrance to the Secretary of State. A Grand Forks carpenter was paid 80 cents an hour to build the room in 1933 using a method called bookmatching, which mirrors two surfaces.
They have an outdoor tour, once a month in the summer. We originally planned to stay past the 12th so we could join it, but we have too many places to go before the International Airstream Rally in Sedalia Missouri. Having a hard deadline forces us to make choices about where to stay and when to leave. We did see a couple of items while we were at the Capitol, and we did go back and walked the mile with the brochure in hand to see some more of the grounds and arboretum.
Bison Statue. A Gift to the People of North Dakota in honor of the State’s centennial. Donated by Dayton’s
By Dayton’s September 12, 1936
Artist Bennett Brian is Metís, an indigenous person from Canada.
Notice the intricate rebar used for fur. Incredible detail.
SAKAKAWEA
The Shoshone “Indian Bird Woman” who in 1805 guided the Lewis and Clark expedition from the Missouri River to the Yellowstone.
We visited the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site a few days ago, where Sakakawea and her family lived when Lewis and Clark arrived in 1804.
I took this picture on the Capitol grounds. It’s the original statue presented to the State in 1910.
I have to credit Architect of the Capitol for the following information about Sakakawea. It’s enscribed by a replica of the statue at the University. In case you didn’t know, or you have forgotten, here’s a brief history of this phenomenal woman. Honestly, her story has always escaped me, and I couldn’t remember from my history classes. There is more information about her on the picture of the Hidatsa villages at Knife River.
In 1800, at about the age of 12, a Shoshone girl was captured by the Hidatsa tribe in an area that is now North Dakota. Her original name is not known, but she was given a new name by her captors. The State of North Dakota has adopted Sakakawea as the most accurate English representation of this name, which means “Bird Woman,” although other spellings (e.g., Sacagawea and Sacajawea) are also used.
By 1804 Sakakawea had become the wife of a French-Canadian, Pierre Charbonneau, who was hired in that year as an interpreter for the northwest expedition headed by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.
She traveled with the party and assisted with translation and made contacts with Shoshone and Hidatsa people, who considered the presence of a woman a sign that the expedition was peaceful. She served as a guide and gathered edible plants along the route. Her son Jean Baptiste was born on February 11, 1805, in winter quarters at Fort Mandan in North Dakota, and she carried him with her when travel resumed. After the return of the expedition in 1806, Sakakawea and her husband and son lived in the Mandan and Hidatsa villages. She is believed to have died of a fever in 1812 at Fort Manuel near Kenel, South Dakota.
À la prochaine…hasta la próxima vez…until next time!