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The Price Tower, a 19-story building in Bartlesville, Okla., designed by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, has been designated a National Historic Landmark.
Fewer than 2,500 historic places in the United States bear the National Historic Landmark designation, the highest such recognition accorded by the federal government to historic properties.
The Price Tower houses a hotel, restaurant, retail stores, a museum and an arts center with a collection that includes a number of Mr. Wright's designs. Tours of the building are offered six days a week.
The landmark designation comes during Oklahoma's centennial year. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced the landmark designation for Price Tower and 11 other sites in 10 states on April 4.
Scott Perkins, the curator of collections and exhibitions at Price Tower Art Center, said he had worked on the application for historic designation since January 2006.
"For us, it means that this building is guaranteed its rightful place in American architectural history," Mr. Perkins said. "There's this recognition and designation so that we can say with pride that somebody else feels the same way we do about it."
Bartlesville businessman Harold C. Price Sr. commissioned Wright to design an office building for his oil pipeline company. The skyscraper cost $2.4 million -- about $18 million in today's dollars -- and took three years to build. It opened in 1956 and is considered, by Mr....