Tag Archives: state capitol

Illinois State Capitol

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Yet again, I have traveled quite a distance to be confronted with a state capitol where part of the building is off limits, and no one bothered to post that on the website. I am in Chicago for the weekend, so I decided to take the train to Springfield for the day (3 hours each way). Once I got to the capitol, I saw that half of it appeared to be under renovation. Upon entering, it was confirmed that the entire Senate side is under renovation and off limits. This was not a surprise renovation. It has clearly been ongoing for a while. Did they post this on their website? No. I do understand that many people would not care if they can only see half the building. I am not one of those people. So as with Connecticut, I will have to come back here in several years, once I can confirm the renovation is over.

With that gripe being said, the building itself is gorgeous. It is really ornate. In many of the capitols I have seen thus far, there is a lot of symbolism in the ornateness. Either there is not in this one, or the guide did not mention it. Symbolism or not, it is beautiful. The building interior is covered with lots of different stone, mainly marble, in many different colors. The dome is spectacular. The House chambers has lots of dark wood with crystal chandeliers. As is my habit, I asked how the light bulbs were changed. A pulley system is used. Finally one detail I noted is that the exit signs have a fancy font. I found that slightly amusing and a nice touch. With a building this ornate, no plain font with do, even for the exit signs.

Illinois State Capitol exterior

Grand staircase

Interior stone walls

Interior of the dome

Interior of the dome, zoomed

House Chambers

House Chambers ceiling

House Chambers gallery

Atrium above grand staircase

Orante ceiling

Ceiling of hearing room, which used to be state supreme court

Door in hearing room, which used to be state supreme court

Lincoln statute with chair with one-legged eagles for legs

New Hampshire State Capitol

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Today I visited the last New England state capitol that I hadn’t seen yet. [Sort of, as I still will need to go back to Connecticut when I can see the Senate chamber.] I toured the New Hampshire state capitol. Unfortunately, they did not have guided tours, but they had a nice pamphlet explaining what to see. Then while visiting the Governor’s Reception Room, we met a couple of very friendly, informative employees, including a man, whom I think worked in facilities, who took us to see a couple of sites not printed in the official guide.

New Hampshire’s state house is the oldest state house in which the legislature still occupies its original chambers. I almost feel like some praise should be given to the original builders and designers for building a capitol that has fulfilled its original use for so long and also not managed to burn down like so many other capitols. Similar to other New England state capitols, it is not overly ornate, but it still has some nice touches. It is fairly small. The House representatives don’t even get a desk. Their chamber is essentially an auditorium. New Hampshire has the largest number of state representatives with 400 elected, yet is in the bottom fifth of states by population. However, New Hampshire has the fourth smallest Senate with 24 elected members. The printed guide did not give any explanation for why there is that dichotomy.

New Hampshire State Capitol

New Hampshire House chambers

New Hampshire senate chambers

Artwork in New Hampshire senate chambers

New Hampshire Governor Reception room

Hall of flags at entrance to the capitol

Our unofficial tour guide who works in facilities, took us to see this painting of Daniel Healy. The reason he took us to see the painting, is it appears he has six fingers on his right hand. Our unofficial guide had no insight if the man actually had six fingers or if the artist just painted the hand weird or what. I can’t find any information on this man. Thus, I am sharing this mystery with anyone who reads my blog.

Portrait of Daniel J. Healy, longest serving state representative

Vermont State Capitol

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Today while on a New England trip, I continued on my quest to see all the state capitols and visited Vermont’s state capitol in Montpelier. The Vermont state capitol reminded me of the Alaska state capitol solely on its somewhat casualness and friendliness of people there. However, the Vermont state capitol is much prettier and ornate. Our tour guide was a now-retired state representative (because he didn’t run for reelection). I don’t know why I find it so funny that a state representative would be a tour guide when not representing, but I do. He was a wonderful tour guide though. The capitol is small really, but the rooms are lovely. The current capitol is the third state house. Probably by coincidence, the senate chamber is predominately green, and the house chamber is predominantly red. I noticed this because this is the exact opposite of a couple of state capitols such as California and Colorado, where the house is green based on the UK House of Commons, and the senate is red based on the UK House of Lords.

There are some neat details in the building. For example, the law dictates that the Vermont coat of arms must have five elements: a deer head, a cow, haystacks, pine tree, and mountains. However, the rest of the details are evidently up to interpretation, so our guide pointed out at least five different versions on the tour. A “bonus” detail we got to see because it not part of a the tour was a gorgeous fireplace in a lounge area that has all these different stones mined in Vermont. We got to see it simply because he was leading us to the elevator as a member of the group needed to use it. Something that I also found amusing is that the capitol does have a dome, but you can’t look into the interior as it is unfinished wood. Our guide pointed to the part of the ceiling that is below the dome at my request because I am weird.

Vermont State Capitol

Vermont House Chambers

Vermont Senate Chambers

Vermont Governor’s formal office

Ceiling in Vermont Governor’s formal office

Cedar Creek Reception Room

Vermont coat of arms on wall of House Chambers

Stairwell

Ceiling on first floor which blocks view of dome (also I think second floor also blocks view)

Connecticut State Capitol

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I am once again traveling on my quest to see all the state capitols. Today I visited Connecticut’s state capitol. The visit was somewhat disappointing because they would not let visitors see the Senate chamber. I understand some people may find my disappointment silly, and some woman on the tour did. However I traveled all this way to see the capitol, and the chambers are the most important parts of the capitol in my opinion. I have seen enough capitols to say confidently that seeing one chamber does not mean you have seen them both, as they are always different in rather interesting and important ways. So there is my criticism of the tour. If the website said you couldn’t visit that chamber, it was not clear because I certainly did not see that warning on the website. This adds to my annoyance.

With that gripe out of the way, the Connecticut state capitol is quite beautiful. It looks like a capitol. It has intricate decorations, and the design clearly has symbolism. There is a reoccurring theme of compasses and flowers that resemble compasses to represent that what happens in the capitol affects the entire state. Dark red, black, and browns are used throughout, which gives the building a very cohesive look. There are not that many statues, but the ones present are rather meaningful. There is also a whole lot of stenciling, which is gorgeous, but I can only imagine the time it took.

Connecticut state capitol

Connecticut state capitol

Connecticut state capitol dome

The Genius of Connecticut

Rotunda

Looking up the rotunda into the dome

Nathan Hale statue in atrium

Stenciling on balcony

Fountain that used to provide water for people to fill in buckets for their horses outside

House chambers

House chamber viewing gallery

House well and speaker’s desk

Ceiling of House chamber

Alaska State Capitol

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With this Alaska trip, I was able to accomplish one of the more difficult tasks in my quest to see all 50 state capitols, as Juneau is not the easiest capital to travel to. I also lucked out because it only opened less than a week ago before which it was closed because of COVID. The Alaska State Capitol is one of the, or perhaps the, least fancy state capitols. The building was formerly a courthouse, and then they turned it into the capitol. There is no dome or other fancy halls. It is an office building. It is lucky for the state, in a way, that they have so few residents because the senate and house chambers are small and used to be courtrooms. There are also quite a few old photos and lots of Alaska Native art, which are quite nice to see.

Alaska State Capitol exterior

House of Representatives Chamber

Senate Chamber

Senate Finance Committee Room

Alaska Natives carved door

Map of Alaska cut from piece of 48 inch pipe used to construct Trans-Alaska pipeline. Weld represents 800-mile route of the pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez.

Phone booths (phones do not work, I checked)

Elevator bay

Virginia State Capitol

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I came to Richmond to tour the Virginia state capitol. I took the tour today, and the tour was so bad that as a resident of Virginia, I was actually embarrassed by it. First, the tour lasted a little over an hour, and well beyond half of it was history of the state, not of the actual capitol (with an “o” meaning the building itself). I find it hard to believe that I am the only person who when going for a tour of a capitol or some other building wants a tour of the building and the history of the building, not of the state or people who used to live there. Second, the tour was completely whitewashed. My tour guide did not say the word “slave” once. In her entire hour long recitation of the history of the colony and state of Virginia, she did not think it important to mention slavery once. If she had barely talked about the history of Virginia, I might be more forgiving of that huge gap. Also, I am going to make an educated guess that slaves were involved in building the capitol.

Third, probably because she spent so much time talking about the history of Virginia, she barely had time to talk about the details of the building. She evidently doesn’t show either of the House or Senate chambers, unless the group wants to see one. We all wanted to see one, so she took us to the House chambers. After that I asked if we could see the Senate, she seemed surprise that someone would want to see both. Is it really that surprising that someone who goes on a tour of a state capitol would want to see both chambers, which generally are the most important rooms in the entire building? She said the two chambers look the same, but possibly because others wanted to see it also, she took us to the Senate chamber also. They are not the same. They are very similar, but there are specific differences. The House has green seats and curtains. The Senate has red seats and curtains. I have visited enough state capitols to make an educated guess that that is based on the British Parliament lower and upper house. [See the California State Capitol and Colorado State Capitol among others.] However I have to guess because the tour guide didn’t bother to point it out. Considering she said they are exactly the same, perhaps she did not even realize it. Further, when we were in the Senate chamber, I asked her about some symbol on the ceiling [see below photo] that I had also noticed in the House. She did at least partially explain what it was, but considering how capitols are generally full of symbolism, I found it bizarre that she didn’t talk about it to initially. Also, she never mentioned that there is place near the stair landing a floor above where we were, where they have clear plastic covering a portion of the interior of the building [see photo below]. Even if she was not going to take us there, she could have mentioned it as something we might want to go see. I discovered it by accident while wandering around after the official tour.

Fourth, perhaps this is a dumb complaint, but one of the reasons I take guided tours of the capitols is because generally the tour guides are fantastic, knowledgable, and can tell you all these details you can’t get by just wandering around. In the rotunda, to the side of the dome, the state seal is painted on the ceiling. Only it is not the official seal. The state seal of Virginia, which among other places is on the flag not to mention numerous places in the capitol, features the goddess Virtue, and one of her breasts, including the nipple is showing. The seal on ceiling has both of Virtue’s breasts covered. I noticed this immediately that it looked wrong. I asked the guide during the tour if that painted version was because of the former Attorney General Cuccinelli who made national news when he changed the seal to cover up Virtue’s breast on things in his office. She said no that is the official seal. After the tour, I showed her an up close photo to point out the difference, and I am not sure she even realized that the painted version differs from the version on the flag and on the floor next to the tour guide desk. She had no explanation for the difference and didn’t seem to be interested in a visitor pointing out to her there is a difference. She said that painting has been there for years. So maybe that version has nothing to do with a recent politician, but why is it different? I am very curious. Also of note, when I told to her after, there was a security guard right there, and he was really interested and wanted to look at my photo. Thus at least one other person finds it interesting that the painted seal is different. I am curious about how old the rotunda painting is and the history of the version of the seal. Internet searches are only giving me the version on the flag.

My complaints are not just about this particular guide. I am quite frankly dumbfounded that a normal tour does not allow a visitor to see both chambers. You can’t get into the chambers at all without a guide. In most of the state capitols I have been to so far, you can just wander in to at least the viewing gallery. In Virginia, that is not possible. As a resident of Virginia this strikes me as wrong. It is supposed to be the people’s house, so let the people see it.

The exterior of the Virginia state capitol. The middle portion is the original version dating back to 1788 and designed by Thomas Jefferson. The two side wings date back to 1906 and hold the two chambers.
The 2007 extension created an underground approach to the capitol. In the photo above is the underground walkway as it approaches the original building. The wall on the right with the windows is the original building.
The original model of the capitol. They painted the model when they painted the building.
The rotunda.
The rotunda features a statue of George Washington.
The dome which is not visible from the exterior.
The Virginia state seal as painted on the ceiling in the rotunda to the side of the dome. Notice Virtue’s breasts are both covered, unlike the version on the flag and seemingly everywhere else.
The House chambers.
The Senate chambers.
The Senate chambers. The House chambers has a similar ceiling.
Painting on the Senate ceiling. The tour guide said the center is a VA for Virginia. I think she said the circle are tobacco leaves.
Near the stairwell on the floor to the chambers’ viewing galleries (it is on both sides), they have part of the wooden frame from the original east and west entrance to the rotunda viewable. The sign says they were uncovered during the 2004-2007 restoration.

Pennsylvania State Capitol

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I am continuing on my quest to see all the state capitols, and today was the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg. It is gorgeous. Harrisburg is the third city to serve as the capital, and the current capitol is the third building in Harrisburg to serve that purpose. So I guess they had several chances to get it right. When the current building was dedicated, President Theodore Roosevelt said it was”the handsomest building” he ever saw. This capitol has everything: stained glass, paintings every where, tile, columns, and gold leaf galore. The rotunda was inspired by St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, and the steps and balconies with the rotunda were inspired by the Paris Opera House, so that says a lot about the design.

Front or west entrance to the capitol
View of the capitol from the east or rear entrance. The east wing is relatively new.
Ceiling of the rotunda
The sides of the rotunda are filled with paintings. The quote below the paintings is a mosaic.
Steps and balconies in the rotunda
The floor of the rotunda and halls off of it are tile with many mosaics. My favorite is this happy bat.
Senate chamber
Top of walls with stained glass in the Senate chamber.
House of Representatives chamber
Wall of House of Representatives
Supreme Court chamber
Painting in the Supreme Court chamber. It says “Love, Law, and Wisdom”.
Stained glass ceiling of the Supreme Court chamber
Governor’s reception room
Hallway from the rotunda to the Senate chamber
Hallway from the House of Representatives to the rotunda

Colorado State Capitol

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Amazingly I lived in Colorado for four years while in college and never once went inside the state capitol. I finally changed that today. Although while taking the tour, I learned that the capitol has been renovated and restored since I was in college, so I was able to see a much nicer looking building than I would have seen back then. The capitol is lovely, and if you are able to visit, take the tour because you can go up into the dome and onto an observation balcony but only on the tour. Similar to capitols, the House of Representatives is decorated in green like the UK House of Commons, while the Senate is decorated in red like the House of Lords. Much of the stone in the building is from quarries in the state, including a gorgeous red onyx. There is a lot of brass that appears to need constant polishing. My favorite feature of the building is Mr. Brown’s Attic, where there are windows to allow you to see much of the superstructure, including vaulted ceiling of the two chambers.

Colorado State Capitol

Interior space

Ground floor

The rotunda

Inside the rotunda looking up to the dome

Representatives chamber

Senate chamber

Brass elevator

Red onyx and brass decorate much of the building

Stairwell with brass decorations

Inside the dome

Window in Mr. Brown’s Attic of the exterior of one of the chamber’s vaulted ceiling

View from the dome’s balcony

California State Capitol

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I am continuing in my quest to visit all the state capitols, and I am in Sacramento this weekend, so I got to add California to my list. The history of the building is rather interesting in that they started building it in 1860, but mainly due to lack of funds, it was not finished for 14 years. In 1906, much modernization was done to the building including electricity and central heat and air. [I was unclear when the indoor plumbing came.] Additions and other renovations were done after that. Some of those renovations sounded like they were more “renovations” that probably sounded good to some at the time, but now most of us at least, and cringe at what was done. Then in 1975, they pretty much completely rebuilt the capitol. The shell of the building stayed, but the interior was completely torn down and built back up again. They did a lovely job of rebuilding. The building is gorgeous with wonderful wooden staircases, gilded and painted ceilings and walls, tile floors, and plenty of little touches you just have to explore to find. The state seal can be found in all sorts of places, and many other symbols are subtly placed around the building. There are bears everywhere, including coming out of staircase railing columns. They also restored several rooms on the first floor to their 1906 appearance, so parts of the capitol are a historical museum.

California State Capitol

Rotunda

Rotunda

Rotunda

The senate chamber is decorated with a lot of pink, which is supposed to reflect the color of the United Kingdom’s House of Lords.

Senate chamber

Senate chamber

The assembly chamber is decorated with a lot of green, which is supposed to reflect the color of the United Kingdom’s House of Commons.

Assembly chamber

Assembly chamber ceiling

In one of the panels of the assembly’s ceiling, is a grotesque of man’s head and his two hands. It is difficult to see unless you are looking for it, preferably with the help of a tour guide with a laser pointer. It is in a panel with a ring of (what I assume are) prickly pears with yellow flowers. Based on what my tour guide said and my internet searches, it doesn’t seem like the origins and true meaning of the grotesque are clear, but a chubby cheeked man with his hands up in a room where politicians work kind of gives me easy ideas.

Assembly chamber ceiling grotesque

Elevator

Wooden staircases with intricate metal lamps

Wooden staircase

Stained glass ceiling light

1906 Governor’s office

Bear guarding the governor’s office

Maine State Capitol

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I’m continuing my quest to see all the state capitol buildings. I am in Maine, so I detoured through Augusta to add Maine to the list. Maine’s state house is one of the least opulent I have seen. The tour guide even mentioned that it was not gilded, as that is not Maine’s way, and they were also not given the budget for it. Thus, there is lovely architecture and some marble tile floors, but no gold leaf, marble columns, or bronze this or that everywhere. There is a complete lack of painted murals. The building has clearly been renovated, but in a respectful manner to the original architecture. My favorite feature of the building is the second floor balcony which looks out to a large park and has rocking chairs on it.

Exterior view of front of capitol

Stairwell from center of building

Fireplace

Capitol dome

House chamber

House chamber

Senate chamber

Senate chamber ceiling

View from front balcony

Rocking chairs on balcony

Elevator