all right guys so we are here in the north Carolina state capitol right now about to continue
our tour of Raleigh's accessible treasures so let's get started
so welcome to our State Capitol this is the second building that stood in this
spot since Raleigh was established as the Capitol this one was completed in
1840 and it replaced a much smaller Statehouse that actually burned when
they were trying to fireproof it ironically unfortunately this building
was built to house all three branches of state government today we have one
branch we have the governor's office here the legislature moved out from the
second floor in the 1960s and as we move around you'll see it just didn't have a
ton of space for support staff and that kind of a thing but it was all done by
hand it was built in part by slave labor it has remained very unchanged it's one of
the least changed nineteenth-century capitols in the country I'll tell you a
little bit about our statue here this is a really unique statue of George
Washington but you wouldn't recognize
him would you yes normally you don't see George
Washington's knees and his toes you often don't see George Washington
sitting down this is actually a copy the original statue that was in the State House
that burned we have a funny story about how he got this Washington statue after
the war of 1812 patriotic feelings were at an all-time high
and North Carolina thought what better way to honor our country than to have a
statue of the first president some of our state leaders consulted with Thomas
Jefferson who was thought to have a very good opinion of the arts and could make
some recommendations and so he said you need to hire this young Italian sculptor
Antonio Canova and I would also suggest that we dress him in classical garb
Jefferson thought that American military uniforms of that time the tricorn
hats he thought they were of what he said
puny effect so he thought they were a little bit ridiculous looking and that
this would be a much better way to honor Washington
Wow I love how big the doors are
I know aren't they interesting the scale of this building is really it's really
interesting in this case we have a couple of the things that were saved
from the fire from the Statehouse this is what the original building looks like
the key to the door and some of the bricks and that sort of thing and here's
a little piece of that original statue oh my goodness and that was the key
You gotta look up while you're
in here because I love it is beautiful it's hard to believe that once when this
building opened it was the tallest building in the city
so are these influential people around north carolina
so part of what we do as the as the historic site the side of the building
is we put on exhibits and this is one that we're just borrowing from the
Craven County Arts Council and it's called composition Craven and they're
just people regular people in Craven County and so it's a photograph of them
and then they have what they're calling a verbal portrait and they just sort of
gave a little explanation they can talk about anything we thought it would be a
kind of a neat thing to display just different people all walks of life and
just different people who live in our state but this is the House of
Representatives chamber and so our legislature met here from 1840 until
1961 was the last session that they had here and we always like to talk about
Lillian Exum Clement who is your girl because she's from Buncombe County she
was the first female elected to serve in North Carolina's legislature and
actually any legislature in the south governor Cooper took his oath of office
in this room and governor McCrory before him so and governors will use it for
bill signings press conferences that kind of a thing so it still does get
used from time to time so similar setup over here although we only have 50
senators they have their individual desks but you still have the top spot
for the when this building opened was the Speaker of the Senate although today
that's the lieutenant governor they preside over the Senate the next
desk there's for the clerk's and then the table the curve table on the floor
that would be the newspaper reporters table so they actually had a good spot
up there and they could hear everything that was happening to kind of get the
news out to the out to the people we have this one desk set up here with some
items on it we're just trying to make the point of how little space they would
have had so his hat would have been on the desk because of course a gentlemen
would not wear his hat in the chamber and then a question that we often get are about
the little box of sand there you always ask is there a cat here but it's actually it's
very glamorous it's a spit box so of course we talked about North Carolina being a
tobacco producing state and a lot of the legislators being farmers and growing
tobacco and how things have changed over time
and that kind of a thing wouldn't it be cool to be able to step back in time and
see what a day looked like in here with everybody
we show some pictures on our tours we talk about some different people who
would have worked in the building but this is one of my favorite pictures so
this is from 1917 so 100 years ago but you can see how full it is in here and
just boards crammed in here it does kind of give you a better idea of how busy it
would have been
we worked with access in North Carolina and kind of made a ramp to come on so
there's easier access onto the square and then the ramp into the building the
way they designed it was so clever because you would never guess that it
wasn't always there but
it was it was very streamlined
it can be really difficult for architects to figure out the best way especially with something so old but they've done a really good job I'm pretty impressed
good i'm so glad to hear that
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