by Our quest to visit all the U.S. State Capitol buildings continues, with a tour of the Wisconsin State Capitol building, located in Madison.
The building, which was completed in 1917 at a cost of $7.25 million, is the third to serve as the Capitol building since Wisconsin became a state.
It houses both chambers of legislature, as well as the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the office of the Governor.
The impressive dome rises more than 284 feet, a measurement that includes the 15-foot statue atop the dome.
The statue was sculpted in 1920 by Daniel Chester French (who also sculpted Lincoln for his memorial in D.C.), and is of a woman with a badger on her head (as our tour guide pointed out, the highest point is the badger’s rear end). Unfortunately, the badger is not visible from the street!
The capitol was constructed of 43 types of stone. Vermont white granite makes up the exterior, making the exterior dome the largest granite dome in the world. A fun fact is that there are eight naturally-occurring fossils in the stones that can be found by visitors; two were pointed out to us on our tour.
A 1988-2002 renovation and restoration cost nearly $160 million. This project undid many earlier remodeling projects and restored it to its 1917 appearance, while making it a modern working building.
The builders went to great lengths to import marble in many colors from Europe, but the effect today is more of a pastiche than part of a unified design choice. The Capitol receives bonus points for the integration of badgers into many elements of the building. And perhaps a few more bonus points for referencing Hamilton during the tour — a large painting of the Founding Fathers includes Thomas Jefferson at the signing of the U.S. Constitution, but Jefferson was serving as ambassador to France at that time so wouldn’t have been in the room, much less the country! Our guide asked if anyone could name Jefferson’s first song in Hamilton, and of course Doug was the first to come up with it: “What Did I Miss?” All in all, though, this is one of the more impressive capitols that we have visited.
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