Bismarck Centennial Forest Traditional Cache
Bismarck Centennial Forest
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In Bismarck, many of the people you meet have been here their whole lives. There’s a family farm somewhere else in North Dakota, and probably their parents or grandparents still live there. So, when I first noticed the trees on the east side of town, I rightly assumed everybody else already knew about the little forest there in a blank field east of Expressway. First, it’s helpful to know the name . It’s called the Bismarck Centennial Forest, planted in July, 1972 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the city. (The state wouldn’t celebrate its centennial until 1989.) It was the first event in a whole weekend of fun activities, including a state trap shoot and a city-wide ringing of church bells. Sponsoring businesses and organizations each bought individual seedlings, volunteers dug holes, and a fence was built in advance. And then, a mob of people showed up at the site at 10 am on Saturday July 22. In 15 minutes, they planted all 394 ponderosa pines to create what they thought might be the largest city name sign in the country. “You’ve heard of the whispering pines,” said Jim Dybdal, the chairman of the forest project in the Bismarck Tribune back in 1972. “Well I like to call this our shouting forest because it’s going to be shouting ‘Bismarck’ for years to come.” His hope was that after the celebration of the centennial had past, the forest would be something left behind for another 100 years. Dybdal said he got the idea for the trees while looking out his office window at a a group of trees. Dybdal, according to an article published in 1977, left Bismarck for Minnesota shortly after the planting. Were arboreal signs a trend at the time? I don’t see any evidence of more than a few plantings over the years throughout the US at any time. Here are a few more things you must know about our eponymous forest: According to the blog Google Sightseeing, the trees are a Grotesque sans serif font, set it at 261,354 point (approx.) A 1979 article in the Bismarck Tribune says the planting is a block long and the letters average 36 feet wide. A 500-pound plaque commemorates the planting just off Bismarck Expressway north of Rosser. You’ve probably driven by it a million times. The land is owned by the state and was used by the penitentiary nearby to graze livestock when the forest was planted. Newspaper stories from 1972 say the sign is 2 miles from Bismarck. Today, it seems very much within city limits. The best place to view the forest from the ground, however, is from E. Main Ave, just east of Expressway.
https://hipbismarck.wordpress.com/2014/10/31/the-bismarck-trees/
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