Archaeologists have recovered seven coffins holding human remains from the grounds of the North Dakota Governor’s Residence in Bismarck, N.D., along with an empty wooden box of unknown origin, the state’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said in an email to PEOPLE on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026 — nearly five months after contractors digging in the yard first struck a grave.
A preliminary analysis of the remains indicated they belong to two women, two men, two teenage boys and one toddler, the agency said.
What the Dig Turned Up
Brandon Solberg, the OMB’s facilities management director, said crews examined more than 80 anomalies and spots of interest flagged during the investigation before wrapping up fieldwork on Sept. 14. The excavation itself had begun on Sept. 1.
The search of the grounds is finished, but the scientific work is not. Archaeologists will now review and catalog every set of remains and each recovered object, a process the state expects to run into early 2027.
A Routine Excavation Stopped Cold
The case opened on May 19, when contractors excavating the southwest corner of the property, near 4th Street and Boulevard Avenue, turned up human remains along with coffin hardware and fragments. Construction halted. Authorities were notified, and archaeologists with the State Historical Society of North Dakota swept the area with ground-penetrating radar.
Those early scans suggested the contractors had found only the edge of something larger. Preliminary radar results identified nine more anomalies, pointing to the potential for 10 graves in the work area, the OMB said at the time.
A Cemetery Beneath the Lawn
The explanation lies more than a century in the past. The property served as Bismarck’s first community cemetery from 1873 to 1877, in the city’s earliest years. Most of the graves were believed to have been relocated to St. Mary’s and Fairview cemeteries in the 1880s.
That belief has been tested before. A project at the site uncovered 13 burials in 1903, and five more came to light in 1959 — evidence that the 19th-century relocation effort left people behind.
“They had thought in the 1880s that they had exhumed everybody,” Kara Haff, a spokesperson for the State Historical Society of North Dakota, told The Bismarck Tribune.
Plans for Reburial Next Spring
The OMB has contracted with a local funeral home to handle the reburial, and Crisis Care Chaplaincy has volunteered to help see that the relocation is carried out respectfully. A spokesperson for Gov. Kelly Armstrong told the North Dakota Monitor that the governor “wants to ensure the remains are treated with the appropriate care and respect.”
Once the cataloging is complete, the remains are expected to be reburied in a local cemetery in the spring of 2027.