532 - Bismarck Tribune

The Bismarck Tribune Building on North 4th Street in Bismarck, North Dakota was built in 1920. Following destructive fires in 1885, 1898, and 1920 at the Bismarck Tribune Headquarters, the editor at the time, George Douglas Mann, hired George H. Stanley, an architect from Great Falls, Montana. Stanley was tasked with designing a fireproof building, complete with a concrete frame and floors, structural clay tile walls, and finished with a pressed-brick exterior, fabricated to the west in Hebron, North Dakota.

The building was designed with the popular Prairie Style in mind, which emerged from the work of a group of young architects including Frank Lloyd Wright. According to Wright, Prairie Style buildings were married to the ground, in celebration of the long, low landscape of the Midwest. With an emphasis on the horizontal rather than the vertical, they often included rows of windows and bands of stone, wood, or brick across the service. Perhaps the most recognizable aspect of the historical Tribune building is the colorful, earthenware art over the main door that depicts priests rehearsing the printer’s art on a hand press. This unique art is still visible today. In the 1950’s, a neon sign on the corner of the building identified it as the headquarters of the Bismarck Tribune.

The Bismarck Tribune Building has evolved into office spaces since the newspaper relocated its operations in 1981. The following year, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, honoring its historical significance.