Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania

From Chester to Philadelphia

William Penn’s first Assembly met at Chester, then called Upland, in December 1682. From the 1680s the legislature met in Philadelphia, at various locations until 1729, and from the 1730s in the new State House, the building now known as Independence Hall. During the Revolution, when the British occupied Philadelphia in 1777 and 1778, the Assembly and the Supreme Executive Council moved to Lancaster.

Moving west

In 1799 the legislature left Philadelphia for Lancaster for good. The state’s population was shifting west, and there was concern over the disease outbreaks that struck Philadelphia in those years.

Lancaster was only an interim stop. Back in 1785 John Harris Jr., the founder of Harrisburg, had donated four acres along the Susquehanna River for public use, and in 1812 the government settled there. Lawmakers met in the Dauphin County Courthouse until the first capitol in Harrisburg, known as the Hills Capitol, opened in January 1822. It stood until a fire destroyed it on February 2, 1897.

The 1906 Capitol

Joseph M. Huston won a 1901 competition for a new Capitol with a Renaissance Revival design. Its dome was modeled on St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, and the building rises 272 feet to the statue on top, called Commonwealth. President Theodore Roosevelt spoke at the dedication on October 4, 1906, and called it the handsomest building he had ever seen.

The graft scandal

The building’s splendor came at a price. The cost of the Capitol and its furnishings ran to more than three times the $4 million limit, and investigators found outrageous padding: the state had been billed $1,619 for a bootblack stand that cost $150. The scandal led to the conviction of Huston and several others in 1910.

Visiting

Capitol Visitor Services offers free guided tours of about 30 to 45 minutes. See the Pennsylvania Capitol website for times.