The Illinois State Capitol, located in Springfield, Illinois, is the sixth to serve as the Capitol since Illinois was admitted to the United States in 1818. The ground was broken for the new Capitol on March 11, 1868, and it was completed twenty years later for a total cost of $4,500,000.
The building contains the chambers for the Illinois General Assembly, which is made up of the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate, and the office for the Governor.
Architectural styles of the building are French Renaissance and Italianate. The footprint is in the shape of a Greek cross with four equal wings. Its tall central dome, and tower roofs are covered in zinc to provide a silvery facade which does not weather. The interior of the dome features a plaster frieze painted to resemble bronze, which illustrates scenes from Illinois history, and stained glass windows, including a stained glass replica of the state seal in the oculus of the dome.
With a total height of 361 ft (110 m), the Illinois Capitol is the tallest non-skyscraper capitol, even exceeding the height of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.. The only state capitols taller than it is the non-classical designs of Louisiana and Nebraska, whose governments opted for modern structures.
In 2011, the facility underwent a $50 million renovation.
The first capital was located in Kaskaskia, Illinois, a city on the Mississippi River founded by the French in 1709. Kaskaskia had been the territorial capital of Illinois since 1809, so it was deemed an appropriate location for the capital of the new state.
In 1820, with the completion of the new, or “second”, Capitol, Vandalia became the capital of the state. The structure burned soon thereafter and a third capitol quickly rose in 1824 at a cost of $15,000. Soon after its construction, many citizens began to advocate relocating the Capitol to a location nearer the center of the state. Choices including Alton, Jacksonville, Peoria, Springfield, Vandalia, and the state’s actual geographic center. In 1836, a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln, along with colleagues of his of the legal profession, advocated moving the capital to Springfield. That summer the Vandalia capitol building was demolished by local citizens and replaced with the fourth capitol (built at a cost of $16,000) in an effort to keep the capital in Vandalia. Although the new brick structure was extravagant, the General Assembly ignored the gesture and voted to relocate the capital to Springfield on February 25, 1837.
On July 4, 1837, the first brick was laid for Illinois’ fifth capitol in Springfield, it was the largest and most extravagant capitol of the western frontier of the United States. The fifth capitol is closely associated with Abraham Lincoln as it was here that he argued cases before the Illinois Supreme Court, served in the State Legislature, first debated Stephen Douglas, delivered his famous “House Divided” speech, and lay in state after his assassination on May 4, 1865.
As Illinois prospered and experienced several booms in population, the fifth capitol became crowded, especially as a result of relocations after the Civil War. On February 24, 1867, the state voted to construct a new larger Capitol. After breaking the ground for the sixth and current Capitol in 1868, the state recouped the costs of the fifth capitol by selling it to Sangamon County for $200,000.
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