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Who said state capitols couldn’t be fascinating? In this final take on Southern capitols there are capitol-crypt buried bodies, government-controlled red-light districts, and independent republics “descending” into statehood. And all along the way, we are still considering my geography professor’s claim that older, eastern capitols are plainer than the younger, western ones. Does the theory hold with these final four?
- Tennessee
Tennessee’s capitol is one of only twelve in the US without a dome. It is a National Historic Landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places. (Photo by Kaldari)
Tennessee was settled in European fits and starts. Eighteenth-century French fur traders came by river, and later Scots-Irish settlers trekked across the Appalachian mountains, both displacing Native Americans. Back then the Tarheel State was an Atlantic-Ocean-to-Mississippi-River province, so central Tennessee didn’t seem all that far west—if, that is, you had never crested the Appalachians with loaded wagons.
Those fur traders knew how to pick their spots, and Nashville’s location on the Cumberland River and the northern end of the Natchez Trace was a people magnet. Meanwhile, the ill-fated State of Franklin (now the northeast corner of Tennessee) was failing, and as a result, in 1796 North Carolina ceded its western half to become Tennessee. Temporary capitals that followed included Kingston (for a day), Knoxville, and Murfreesboro.
The Tennessee capitol is shown on the $20 bill of the Confederate States of America (courtesy the National Museum of American History)
Although other towns competed to become the permanent capital, in 1843 Nashville won over Charlotte. Its central location and long history as a successful trade port may have helped, but imagine the lobbying behind the single vote that made the difference.
At one time the Diocese of Nashville (which included the entire state) had its Holy Rosary Cathedral on top of the best hill in town. That’s where the capitol went. And the government controlled the city’s popular red-light district during the Civil War. Talk about separation of church and state.
This copy of a Greek temple includes the lantern seen on top of so many capitols—it honors the Greek god of wine fighting with pirates! Construction began in 1845 and was finished in 1859, a civil engineering marvel with its early and innovative use of structural iron. Huge wooden derricks were needed to place the single-stone interior columns. Wary of fire, builders supported the roof with iron instead of wood.
Two bodies are buried in this capitol (which is a first, as far as I have found, but then this hill used to sport a cathedral, where entombed bodies are not unique), that of William Strickland, the main architect, who died during construction, and Samuel Dodd Morgan, the State Building Commission chair. Quirky or spooky?
- Texas
The current Texas capitol is the largest among all state capitols. In 1888 at half its current size it was the seventh largest building in the world. (Photo by LoneStarMike)
Texas’s past as an independent republic is widely recognized as the birth of its “everything is bigger” spirit, but along the way the twenty-eighth state had its over-sized share of obstacles to creating a permanent capital and capitol building.
Texas’s first state capitol, here seen sixty years old and in disrepair, was nowhere near big (photo courtesy of Frank E. Beach and DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University)
For starters, six nations have governed this place: Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the United States, and the Confederate States of America. During its Republic years, eight places served as the seat of government: San Felipe de Austin, Washington-on-the-Brazos, Harrisburg, Galveston Island, Velasco, Columbia, Houston, and Austin. Dizzy yet?
Although many temporary buildings have witnessed Lone Star lawmaking and governance, three deliberately built capitols have served the state. The first one in 1836 was a modest wooden affair in (now West) Columbia. Following statehood in 1845 a second structure was built in 1853 on the current site in Austin, but it burned down in 1881.
The Goddess of Liberty before she ascended to the top of the capitol dome of Texas (photo courtesy of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission)
Before ground was broken for the rebuild, the deal that was made to enable construction of the current capitol was large even by Texas standards. A huge land swap of three million Panhandle acres in lieu of payment to the builders created the XIT (cattle) Ranch—the largest in the world at the time. Of course the third capitol, completed in 1888, had to be bigger, better, and best—and it is. But in 1983 an east wing fire nearly took down the whole place, and it took ten years to restore the building. What is it with state capitols and fire?
The red granite building’s style is Italian Renaissance Revival, and it’s the first of that kind so far in this series. With all that Spanish, French, and Mexican influence, Texas went Italian. It is newish, it is western, and it is grand with a capital G. Good going, professor.
In 1993, a renovation included four underground stories and an inverted rotunda, more than doubling the above-ground size of 360,000 square feet. The nation’s largest state capitol has almost 400 rooms, more than nine hundred windows and, of all things, a whispering gallery in this monument to bigger-is-better that shouts, “Texas!”
- Virginia
Modeled after a Roman temple, Virginia’s magnificent yet modest and unique-among-state-capitols building exudes history (photo by Skip Plitt of C’ville Photography)
If a nation’s historic moments were a mountain, Virginia would be its citadel. So much of importance to all of us has happened in this stretch of land between the Atlantic, Chesapeake Bay, and the Appalachians, it’s difficult to focus on just the Commonwealth as a solo unit. But here goes.
From 1699 to 1780 the Governor’s Palace at Williamsburg was Virginia’s capitol (photo by Ron Cogswell)
Thus far eight presidents have been born in the Old Dominion. The oldest continuous law-making body in North America is the Virginia General Assembly, formerly the House of Burgesses, which dates from 1619. Those folks first met in the Jamestown Church.
The ultimate Virginian, George Washington is memorialized forever in the capitol rotunda (sculpture by Jean-Antoine Houdon; photo by Skip Plitt of C’ville Photography)
Williamsburg was named the capital in 1699, and a grand palace was built there. Richmond became the capital during the Revolution; its inland location was deemed safer than the coast by Governor Thomas Jefferson, who had a knack for locating property.
Richmond itself served double duty, becoming the second capital of the Confederacy. Lynchburg briefly served as a safe haven for government, then Danville. After the Civil War, Richmond again became the capital.
No surprise, no fewer than eight buildings have served as the capitol, but the one that matters was designed in part by Jefferson, based on a Roman temple. Two wings have been added and another 27,000 square feet carved out under the hill it sits on (Shockoe Hill overlooking the James River), but it looks for all the world like it flew in from Nice, France, just as it did when Jefferson first saw it.
Domeless, like eleven other capitols (including Florida, Louisiana, and Tennessee), it had a large courtroom on the third floor. On April 27, 1870, a heated political dispute resulted in an enormous crowd in that room, leading to the total collapse of the gallery. More than sixty people died, and over 250 were injured.
Many wanted the building demolished, but the damage was repaired, and the current capitol is a glorious version of its first self. The building that goes by “House of Delegates” retains its original interior woodwork—much like Virginia, who will never shed its patriotic roles. Origins and history matter.
- West Virginia
The state capitol of West Virginia (photo by Analogue Kid)
Here we have a state created by separatists united in the cause of supporting the Union—but they promptly fell out of favor with each other over where to put the capital. People and politics, just like oil and water. Well, maybe coal and water is better for the fifteenth state. Here’s to wild, wonderful West Virginia.
Carved out of the northwestern counties of Virginia in 1863, for the first part of its history the capital shifted between Wheeling and Charleston and met just about any old where. In 1877 the citizens chose Charleston, and things settled down.
The second WV state capitol screams Gothic. Built in 1885, it burned down in 1921. (Photo courtesy of West Virginia State Archives)
But not really. The first capitol in Charleston was an eclectic mix of styles—Italianate, Second Empire, and High Victorian Gothic. Possibly this mélange of a building made Wheeling’s 1875 invitation to bring the government back there attractive. But even with a tidy, single-style Second Empire building, Wheeling lost out big-time when someone said, “Let’s go back to Charleston.”
There, a High Victorian Gothic capitol was built in 1885 and was used until it burned down in 1921. A quickly built wooden place, “the pasteboard” capitol, burned down in 1927. Seriously folks—someone needs to investigate all these capitols burning down. It’s a thing.
The current buff limestone building was begun in 1924 and completed in 1932. There is a gold dome with an eagle on top, bronze doors, and a 4,000-pound chandelier inside. As of 2006, the 292-foot capitol was the tallest building in West Virginia, a land of giant mountains.
Our tour through the capitols of the South pretty much bears up to the geography professor’s observation that older, eastern capitols are less flashy and smaller than later, western capitols.
There is beauty and history in every one of them. Too many fires, in my book, but so much pride and dignity. It’s time to go exploring one or more of them and hear the facts from a qualified docent.
And you can even get your hair cut in Oklahoma’s.
RETURN TO SOUTHERN STATE CAPITOLS PART ONE
RETURN TO SOUTHERN STATE CAPITOLS PART TWO
RETURN TO SOUTHERN STATE CAPITOLS PART THREE
SEE ALL SOUTHERN STATE CAPITOLS PART FOUR PHOTOS HERE
