by Faith Marcovecchio
In February 1861, with Abraham Lincoln about to take office and the Civil War just weeks from breaking out, President James Buchanan signed legislation establishing the Colorado Territory. Immediately, the territory’s first governor, William Gilpin, began thinking about where the capital of the new territory would be. Towns up and down the Front Range vied for the honor, and in the territory’s first years, the center of government moved from Colorado City to Golden and finally, in 1867, found its home in Denver. Now it was time for political leaders to think about a site for a statehouse.
Money was tight, so when contractor and builder Henry Cordes Brown offered government officials a 10-acre swath of land south of town as a gift, they jumped at the opportunity. Years of fundraising followed. In the centennial year of our nation’s founding, Colorado became a state, and soon after, the General Assembly set aside money for a capitol building. Finally, in 1885, a plan and an architect, Elijah Myers, were chosen.
At a time when Colorado’s population stood at 200,000, Myers had an interesting idea: Every agency of state government, including boards, commissions, and all the public servants who worked for those agencies, would be housed within the walls of his simple but grand building. The structure would be so large that it would serve the new state as the sole state government building for generations to come.
When the State Capitol was finally completed 15 years later, Myers’s grand vision was realized: The legislature’s beautiful bicameral chambers shared a floor with the Colorado Supreme Court. The governor’s office sat across from the offices of the state treasurer, attorney general, and five other executive branch officers. And, perhaps most interesting, on the main floor Myers set aside space to showcase the most powerful influences in nineteenth-century Colorado: Mining, agriculture, and land management.
Walking into the statehouse in its early years was like visiting a museum featuring all that Colorado had to offer. In the west wing, collections from the State Historical and Natural History Society were on display, including pottery, tools, and baskets from Mesa Verde; stuffed birds, bison, bears, and bighorn sheep from Colorado’s mountains and plains; and Civil War-era cannons, firearms, and banners used in the Battle of Glorieta Pass. Down the hall, glittering minerals and polished stone filled cabinets in the Bureau of Mines quarters. In yet another room, the State Horticultural Society displayed the trees, flowers, fruits, and vegetables grown in Colorado. There were even quarters where Union Civil War veterans could gather (until they were evicted in 1897 for too much card playing and carousing).
The treasures found on the Capitol’s main floor, along with the brass chandeliers, marble floors, rose onyx walls, and soaring rotunda above, attracted tourists in droves. But the dome itself was the most important element, marrying the functions of government with the natural beauty that encircled the building. An observation deck offered sightseers, as Myers had hoped, “an unequaled view of the surrounding country.” The architect knew the panorama of the Rocky Mountains from Pikes Peak to Longs Peak was the building’s greatest feature.
As the nineteenth century came to a close and the twentieth century dawned, a variety of embellishments were added. A sweeping staircase rose through the center of the rotunda, replacing cast-iron staircases in the north and south atriums. The copper-plated dome, which quickly oxidized, was covered with gold leaf in a glittering nod to the Pikes Peak gold rush. Brightly colored stained-glass portraits of Colorado pioneers were installed in the rotunda.
Some of these changes were in tune with Myers’s original vision. Others were not. But the building’s greatest promise, that it would hold every office and function of Colorado government for generations, quickly shattered. By 1907, so many new agencies and commissions had been created that the statehouse had reached its limit. Fewer than 10 years after the Capitol’s grand opening, its managers were looking for a place to expand.
Today, though shiny minerals and taxidermied mammals no longer fill the first floor of the statehouse, the grandeur and beauty of the Gilded Age still make the Colorado Capitol an attraction to tourists from throughout the state, the country, and the world.
To learn more about the planning, construction, and evolution of the Colorado statehouse, see Derek R. Everett’s book, “The Colorado State Capitol: History, Politics, Preservation,” University Press of Colorado, October 1, 2018, on which this article is based.