Columbus, the capital of Ohio

Chillicothe and Zanesville

When Ohio became a state in 1803, its capital was Chillicothe, which had been the seat of the Northwest Territory government since 1800 and where the 1802 state constitution was drafted. It sat on Zane’s Trace, an early road, and on the Scioto River, and it was then the largest town in the state. Before that, the territorial government had sat at Marietta and Cincinnati.

In 1810 the legislature moved to Zanesville, where it met in a brick statehouse completed in 1809. Two years later it returned to Chillicothe, while the state looked for a permanent home.

Choosing Columbus

In 1812 the legislature chose Columbus, then still a small settlement. It lay nearer the center of the state than either earlier capital, and local landowners donated a large tract for the capitol grounds. An act of February 17, 1816, fixed the seat of government at Columbus from that October; state offices moved that fall, and the General Assembly first met there on December 2, 1816.

The Statehouse

Ohio’s Statehouse was a long time coming. The cornerstone was laid on July 4, 1839, but debt, politics and disease stalled the work: in 1849 more than 115 inmates of the Ohio Penitentiary, who supplied much of the labor, died in a cholera epidemic. Legislators moved in by 1857, and the building was declared finished on November 15, 1861. Its design is credited to a series of architects, among them Henry Walter, Alexander Jackson Davis, William Russell West, Nathan B. Kelley and Isaiah Rogers, and is largely derived from the competition entry of Thomas Cole.

The Greek Revival building is made of Columbus Limestone, cut at a state-owned quarry west of the city, much of it by penitentiary inmates. Its 24 Doric columns are each about 6 feet thick and 36 feet tall, and fossil corals and snails can be spotted in the stone. Instead of a dome, the rotunda is topped by a drum-shaped cupola with a low conical roof.

Between 1992 and 1996 the Statehouse and the neighboring 1901 Senate Building were restored and linked by a new atrium.

Visiting

The Statehouse is open to visitors. See the Ohio Statehouse website for tours and hours.