Est. 1910 · Fargo Downtown Historic District · North Dakota Agricultural Commerce History · NDSU Campus Architecture
The building at 650 NP Avenue in Fargo's Downtown Historic District was constructed around 1910 as a farm implement warehouse and dealership — a common building type in the northern Plains during the early 20th century, when agricultural distribution anchored urban commerce.
The structure is a four-story, 77,000-square-foot loft-style warehouse built with post-and-beam construction. This technique — heavy timber columns and beams, open floor plates — was standard for distribution warehouses of the era and gives the building its large, unobstructed interior spaces.
Northern School Supply Co. used the building as a distribution center for school materials until the company closed in 1997. School Specialty Inc. of Appleton, Wisconsin acquired the building and announced demolition plans in 2000. The announced demolition drew local preservation attention.
In December 2000, Doug Burgum — the Fargo technology entrepreneur who later became North Dakota's Governor — donated the building to the NDSU Development Foundation. Dedication ceremonies were held on September 17, 2004. The building was formally renamed Renaissance Hall in November 2008 and now houses North Dakota State University's Visual Arts and Architecture programs, along with offices for Tri-College University.
The building's history is documented in the NDSU Fargo History archives and the Society of Architectural Historians Archipedia, which lists it as the Robb-Lawrence Warehouse / Northern School Supply Building.
Sources
- https://library.ndus.edu/fargo-history/indexb199.html?q=content/northern-school-supply
- https://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/ND-01-CS4
- https://kilbournegroup.com/properties/renaissance-hall/
- https://ohmyomaha.com/omaha-urban-legends/
ApparitionsPhantom soundsPhantom footsteps
The legend of the Northern School Supply warehouse centers on the elevator shaft — the building's vertical core, linking all four floors of the post-and-beam structure.
The account describes a young boy who fell down the shaft at some unspecified period during the warehouse's operating years. The specifics of how or when this happened are not documented in public records. What circulates instead is what came after.
People working late in the building reported three things, consistently: the sound of a child crying from inside the shaft; the sound of small running feet on the floor above; and an apparition — a small boy who would appear in a corridor and stand, watching, before vanishing.
The building in its current Renaissance Hall form still contains the original post-and-beam structure, including the elevator infrastructure. The NDSU architecture and visual arts departments now occupy the floors where warehouse workers once reported these encounters.
The story appears in regional Fargo haunted-places compilations and is noted in the Only in Your State coverage of Fargo's most atmospheric locations. No primary documentary source — no news account of an accident, no coroner record — has been identified to confirm the underlying event.
Notable Entities
Unnamed small boy
