North Dakota State Capitol

Bismarck's State Capitol is unlike any other in the United States. Where most state capitols are domed classical piles, North Dakota's is a nineteen-story Art Deco skyscraper, rising two hundred forty-one feet above the plains. Completed in nineteen thirty-four during the depths of the Depression, it replaced an earlier capitol that burned in nineteen thirty.

The original building was modeled on the U.S. Capitol; the replacement was not.

North Dakota's political culture had long been shaped by the Nonpartisan League, a farmer-socialist movement that took over state government in nineteen eighteen and built state-owned mills, banks, and grain elevators. The skyscraper design was deliberate, meant to signal modernity and strength during hard times. Locals call it the Skyscraper on the Prairie.

The nineteen-floor tower stands in conspicuous contrast to the flat horizon stretching in every direction.