Bismarck's 1884 Victorian executive residence where Governor Frank Briggs died of tuberculosis in the master bedroom — staff and visitors report a self-opening bedroom door and footsteps on the attic stairs.
320 East Avenue B, Bismarck, ND 58501
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free admission; donations accepted. Operated by the State Historical Society of North Dakota.
Access
Limited Access
Multi-story historic Victorian with original staircases; ground floor accessible via ramp, upper floors require stair access.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1884 · Stick-style Victorian Architecture · Official North Dakota Governor's Residence 1893-1960 · Home of Twenty Governors · Death Site of Governor Frank Briggs (1898)
The mansion at 320 East Avenue B was constructed in 1884 for Asa Fisher, a businessman who had homesteaded in the Bismarck area in 1872. The Stick-style Victorian design was an unusual choice for the frontier capital and is one of the few surviving examples of the style on the northern Plains.
In 1893, the state purchased the property for $5,000 to serve as the official governor's residence. Over the next sixty-seven years, twenty North Dakota governors occupied the mansion. The last governor to live there was John E. Davis, whose term ran through 1960.
The most consequential personal event associated with the mansion occurred in 1898, when Governor Frank Briggs's daughter Estella died of tuberculosis on his inauguration day. Governor Briggs himself, also suffering from tuberculosis, died in the second-floor master bedroom shortly afterward. The double loss marked the residence permanently in local memory and is the historical anchor that paranormal accounts later attached themselves to.
Following the mansion's retirement from gubernatorial use in 1960, the building housed offices for the State Health Department from 1961 through 1975. In 1975 the legislature transferred ownership to the State Historical Society of North Dakota. After an extensive restoration that returned the interior to its 1893 appearance, the mansion opened to the public as a state historic site in 1983 and remains operated by the SHSND today.
Sources
Paranormal accounts at the Former Governors' Mansion cluster around Governor Frank Briggs, who died of tuberculosis in the second-floor master bedroom in 1898 after losing his daughter Estella to the same disease on his inauguration day. Staff and longtime visitors describe the bedroom door opening and closing without a hand on it, curtains moving with no breeze, and footsteps on both the attic and basement staircases when no one is on them.
According to the State Historical Society's own blog, the family's longtime butler and cook was convinced Governor Briggs continued to haunt the attic after his death. Author Lori L. Orser, researching her book Spooky Creepy North Dakota, reported capturing an EVP near the attic staircase during a recording session at the site. Numerous regional paranormal groups have investigated the mansion at night; per the SHSND blog, most have found no measurable activity, with the exception of one group that detected an electromagnetic anomaly traveling at a slow walking pace between the parlor piano and the back entry.
A persistent folktale about a little girl buried in the basement appears to be a confused echo of Estella Briggs's actual death — she is buried in Howard Lake, Minnesota, not in the mansion. The State Historical Society addresses this directly in its public-facing materials, an unusually transparent stance for a state agency about a haunt narrative attached to one of its sites.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Walk through twenty governors' worth of restored 1893-period rooms, including the second-floor master bedroom where Governor Frank Briggs died in 1898 — long reported by staff as the focal point of the mansion's haunt accounts.
Staff-led tours of the period rooms when available; ask about the documented EVP captured near the attic staircase by author Lori L. Orser.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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