525 - Custer Park
Custer Park is Bismarck’s first municipal park. The park was developed by the Bismarck Civic Improvement League established in 1908 by a group of over 40 women committed to making Bismarck the “cleanest and most beautiful city in the state.” The League subscribed to the nation-wide trend in urban planning known as the “City Beautiful Movement” and pushed for social reform, as well. Members included Dr. Fannie Dunn Quain, Aldyth Ward, Elizabeth Orr, Emma H. Atkinson, and Helen Dahl—some of whom lived only a few blocks north of here in what is now the Cathedral Area Historic District.
In 1910, using funds raised from community events and donations, the Bismarck Civic Improvement League purchased the 4.5-acre space from the Bismarck Development Company who was advertising lots for sale in the new Riverview Addition on the west side of downtown. The group donated the “Riverview Park” to the City of Bismarck and hired B. Terrell Hoyt, a landscape architect from Minneapolis, to draft plans for various plantings and design elements—including the potential for a pond at the park’s south end. The plans were never fully realized, but many of the trees throughout this quaint park survive from its early days—100 trees were donated by Oscar Will of the Oscar Will Seed Company.
When the Bismarck Civic Improvement League’s work was featured in a 1911 issue of Suburban Life Magazine, Helen Dahl, then president of the organization, reflected on their efforts and stated: “In the years to come, future generations will enjoy and appreciate the results of the work that is being done by the women of today in North Dakota.” The forward-thinking women of the League can be thanked for instigating the formation of a municipal park board, numerous public gardens, early garbage collection services, public restrooms, and faucets and drinking fountains and, of course, Bismarck’s first park!
The Eagle Statue, sculpted by Tom Neary, was added to the park in 1988 for the bicentennial celebration of the U.S. Constitution and has become a focal point for visitors to the park.