In the 1980s I worked in this building, the Pinehurst office building at 1424 West Century Avenue. Who cares, right? Well, the oddity about this building is that it wasn’t even near Century Avenue at the time. West Century Avenue continued straight westward from Washington, eventually intersecting with Tyler Parkway. Clydesdale Drive, the street that the Pinehurst building actually sat on, continued due south to intersect behind Country West Conoco (at that time the Truck Plaza 35 truck stop).

A call to the City of Bismarck’s engineering department confirmed that the plan for Century Avenue was to divert it south around the water tower hill; yet it followed the section line to the north of the hill until such time as city growth warranted the new road, which now curves south of the water tower hill. It turns out their planning was very wise, because that’s where the bulk of the new “big box” stores have popped up recently. Can you imagine if all that traffic had to go up that hill and back around through the neighborhoods in the Tyler Parkway area? What a mess!