615 - Former Governors' Mansion - General Overview

The exterior of the house before you has been restored as much as possible to look as it did in 1893, the year it became North Dakota’s first governor’s mansion.

During the first three years North Dakota’s existence, its governors lived with friends or in hotels. But that spring, the legislature set aside a budget of $6,000 to build or buy a governor’s mansion, as well as furnish it. They put three people in charge: the attorney general, the auditor, and Governor Eli Shortridge himself. Unfortunately, the budget—which would be about $175,000 in today’s money—wasn’t much. According to newspaper accounts, they wanted to build a new mansion and considered using prison labor to stretch the “meager” budget. In the end, they bought this house, one of the finest in the state, from Asa Fisher for $4,500.

Shortridge was the first of 20 governors to move in. Often governors had to turn over the keys to successors that they deeply disliked or mistrusted, which they almost always did. The one exception, “Wild Bill” Langer, is the subject of his own Talking Trails sign.

Different first families made many changes over the years, such as putting up new wallpapers, taking down out-of-style decorations, and building a two-story screened porch. But over decades of tight budgets, the mansion didn’t get enough funding to keep up with maintenance needs, and many began to consider it too old-fashioned anyway. In 1960, the state completed a new modernist-style ranch house on the capitol grounds, and then-Governor John Davis moved out. That one served for 58 years until it was torn down and replaced in 2018.

Going back to 1960, many North Dakotans feared that this mansion might be torn down as well, but fortunately, state representative Arthur Link took an interest in the house and found new uses for it. It served as the state Psychiatric Clinic until 1972 and as the Department of Health until 1975. Finally that year, Gov. Art Link signed a bill making it a state historic site. His wife, Grace, played a lead role in founding the Society for the Preservation of the Former Governors’ Mansion, which has helped fund its restoration and maintenance ever since. Considering that North Dakota’s original capitol building burned down in 1930, this residence provides visitors with an especially valuable link to the state’s earliest history.