Bismarck High School is a very historic building, having been constructed in 1935, in the hard-times of the Great Depression. The three-story structure has distinctive Art Deco architecture – with vertical decorative lines cut into stone along the doorways and between the rows of windows – simple, yet stylish. The architect was Robert A. Ritterbush (1891-1980), a native of Oakes and a 1917 architectural graduate of what is now called the University of Cincinnati.