Womens Rest Room

The most prominent landmark in Bismark, as you might expect, is the state capitol.

Don’t let the federal prison architecture fool you, inside it’s got great historic art deco details. You can see some of them here.

But like most old buildings, the most interesting details are in the bathroom. In this case, the Women’s Rest Room on the ground floor. The door’s open, so let’s just go on in…

Entrance to Womens Rest Room

There’s a coat room. Then you go into a lounge room. Then you go into the bathroom. Then you go into the toilet stall–a  lot of doorways when you really need a toilet! But it’s worth it:

Look! They have those old sanitary napkin bags for your convenience and modesty! How often do you get those anymore? Let’s get a close up on that…

When you’re done with that, maybe you’d like to wash your hands?

Clean, accessible, and love the all-one trash basket and towel service (above). But here comes the best part. The lounge:

The lounge features all these wicker chairs, each with unique detail:

I like to sit in the chairs and think about them who wove the chairs for us. It was the patients of the North Dakota Hospital for the Insane, sometime between 1910 and 1940.

Well, that’s our tour. If for whatever reason you don’t feel welcome in the Womens Rest Room at the Capitol, you can also see wicker chairs on the observation floor.

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