{"id":314,"slug":"liberty-memorial-building-bismarck-north-dakota","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["The Liberty Memorial Building in Bismarck is home to the Stack Monster — the file's entire register being a library/archives tradition: workers reporting voices, shadows, and footsteps in the stacks of the state building that houses North Dakota's memory.","The Stack Monster is the file's whole legend — an archive's ghost in a literal archive, the state's stored records reportedly keeping a resident that the people who tend them keep hearing."]},{"heading":"Voices in the stacks","paragraphs":["The workers' reports are the file's evidence — voices, shadows, and footsteps among the stacks, the building's holdings being the dead's papers and the building's ghost being reportedly one of them.","The Stack Monster's name is the file's signature — a state archive's haunting given the institutional name it earned, the tradition being the workers' own folklore about their own building."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["The Liberty Memorial is the archive's archive file — a state records building with a Stack Monster, the people who keep the state's memory reporting a resident among it. The workers' accounts are the record; the monster is the stacks' lore.","A building that holds the state's dead papers keeps a ghost — the file's suggestion being that the stacks' resident is one of the records that never got filed."]}],"name":"Liberty Memorial Building","aliases":["North Dakota State Library building"],"type":"LIBRARY","type_label":"Library","cats":["HAUNTING"],"groups":["hauntings","institutions"],"desc":"Library associated with documented cultural history.","full_desc":"Liberty Memorial Building is a library in Bismarck, North Dakota. Library associated with documented cultural history. HauntHunt files it with haunting reports. Ask the file who haunts it and it answers: Stack Monster. The dossier holds 1 reported claim, 1 legend and 1 named or described presence — all telling, no verified spine yet, and the file says so plainly. The site is open to visitors.","address":"604 East Boulevard Avenue","city":"Bismarck","county":null,"state":"North Dakota","postal":null,"region":"Midwest","lat":46.814572,"lon":-100.768568,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"2022 page republishes a 2003 segment. Current renovation notice supersedes general south-lot parking advice.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":59.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.85,"historical_confidence":0,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":241,"type":"SHADOW_FIGURE","description":"Workers reportedly encountered voices, shadows and footsteps associated with the Stack Monster tradition. The account has been recorded since Documented in this Dakota Datebook segment dated 2003-10-31; no claim of earliest origin.. The site in Bismarck, North Dakota gives the account a documented setting: real place, real history, unresolved reports. It survives as local folklore, which is to say it survives because people keep telling it. The report is preserved in sources like 'Ghost Story'. Whatever walks there, it walks often enough to keep the reports coming.","evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","evidence_label":"Local folklore","entity":"Stack Monster","where":null,"first_report":"Documented in this Dakota Datebook segment dated 2003-10-31; no claim of earliest origin.","approx_date":null,"confidence":0.7,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Ghost Story","url":"https://news.prairiepublic.org/show/dakota-datebook-archive/2022-04-25/ghost-story","publisher":"Prairie Public","type":"LOCAL_JOURNALISM","authority":3},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"Workers reportedly encountered voices, shadows and footsteps associated with the Stack Monster tradition. The account has been recorded since Documented in this Dakota Datebook segment dated 2003-10-31; no claim of earliest origin.. The site in Bismarck, North Dakota gives the account a documented setting: real place, real history, unresolved reports. It survives as local folklore, which is to say it survives because people keep telling it. 'Ghost Story' carries the account. Legends accrue where records go silent; this one filled the gap and stayed.","earliest":"Documented in this Dakota Datebook segment dated 2003-10-31; no claim of earliest origin.","evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","source":{"name":"Ghost Story","url":"https://news.prairiepublic.org/show/dakota-datebook-archive/2022-04-25/ghost-story","publisher":"Prairie Public","type":"LOCAL_JOURNALISM","authority":3}}],"entities":[{"name":"Stack Monster","claimed_identity":"Stack Monster","verified":null,"summary":"Workers reportedly encountered voices, shadows and footsteps associated with the Stack Monster tradition. The account has been recorded since Documented in this Dakota Datebook segment dated 2003-10-31; no claim of earliest origin.. The reports at Liberty Memorial Building are the site's second history — unofficial, unverified, and stubbornly retold. A named spirit outlasts an anonymous one; the file's name is Stack Monster.","behavior":"Workers reportedly encountered voices, shadows and footsteps associated with the Stack Monster tradition.","area":null,"first_ref":"Documented in this Dakota Datebook segment dated 2003-10-31; no claim of earliest origin.","source":{"name":"Ghost Story","url":"https://news.prairiepublic.org/show/dakota-datebook-archive/2022-04-25/ghost-story","publisher":"Prairie Public","type":"LOCAL_JOURNALISM","authority":3}}],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"opening_hours":"Monday–Friday 8 a.m.–4 p.m., except listed state holidays.","parking":"South parking lot temporarily closed during renovations; check operator notice.","accessibility":"During renovations visitors directed to west ground-floor entrance.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-14T10:36:19+00:00","source":{"name":"Renovations","url":"https://www.library.nd.gov/renovations","publisher":"North Dakota State Library","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}},"sources":[{"name":"Ghost Story","url":"https://news.prairiepublic.org/show/dakota-datebook-archive/2022-04-25/ghost-story","publisher":"Prairie Public","type":"LOCAL_JOURNALISM","authority":3},{"name":"General Information","url":"https://www.library.nd.gov/generalinfo","publisher":"North Dakota State Library","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"Renovations","url":"https://www.library.nd.gov/renovations","publisher":"North Dakota State Library","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Liberty Memorial Building","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Memorial_Building","desc":null,"extract":"The Liberty Memorial Building is a building located on the North Dakota State Capitol grounds in Bismarck, North Dakota. The Liberty Memorial Building was completed in 1924, and is the oldest building still standing on the capitol grounds. The Liberty Memorial Building is the home of the North Dakota State Library.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/Hoar_Frost_on_the_Capitol_Grounds_%2851102159520%29.jpg/330px-Hoar_Frost_on_the_Capitol_Grounds_%2851102159520%29.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":104,"lat":46.81916667,"lon":-100.78138889},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":0,"legends":1,"entities":1,"sources":3}}