Isaac Smith laid the cornerstone in May 1843. He was self-taught in architecture, but his design drew confidently on Greek and Roman influences common to North American public buildings of the era -- columns, symmetry, the quiet authority of classical proportion. Island craftsmen built it during a period of colonial prosperity, and the legislature met inside for the first time in January 1847. Smith also designed the residence of the Lieutenant Governor, establishing himself as the colony's de facto architect. Province House became Canada's second-oldest seat of government, and it has served continuously in that role ever since, its modest scale belying the enormity of what happened within its walls.

From September 1 to 7, 1864, Province House hosted the Charlottetown Conference. The delegates had originally come to discuss a Maritime union -- a merger of the three Atlantic colonies. Instead, a delegation from the Province of Canada, led by John A. Macdonald and George-Etienne Cartier, arrived uninvited and pitched something far larger. The discussions that followed in the Confederation Chamber on the building's west side set in motion the political process that created the Dominion of Canada in 1867. Parks Canada recognized the significance in 1973, entering a 99-year joint management agreement with the provincial government. A 3.5-million-dollar restoration between 1979 and 1983 returned part of the building to its 1864 appearance, while the provincial legislature continued to occupy the other end. Province House is one of only three provincial legislative buildings in Canada designated a National Historic Site.

Province House has not always aged quietly. On April 20, 1995 -- one day after the Oklahoma City bombing -- a pipe bomb exploded beneath a wooden wheelchair ramp on the building's north side. Glass shattered, minor structural damage followed, and several passersby were injured. An entire class of schoolchildren on a tour had passed through the area just five minutes earlier. A group calling itself Loki 7 claimed responsibility, but a police investigation and criminal court case attributed the attack to a single individual, Roger Charles Bell. At the other end of the spectrum, a small bronze statue of Eckhart the Mouse, from David Weale's children's story The True Meaning of Crumbfest, sits on the legislature grounds -- one of nine such figures placed around Charlottetown in 2009 to encourage students to explore the city's historic sites.

In 2015, Province House closed for what was expected to be a few years of repairs and conservation work. The legislature moved next door to the Hon. George Coles Building. The project's scope -- replacing outdated mechanical systems, addressing accessibility, restoring interior finishes -- proved far more extensive and expensive than anticipated. By mid-2023, costs had reached 91.8 million Canadian dollars with work still incomplete. An additional 46 million was announced in November 2023, bringing the total to 138 million dollars -- a staggering sum for a building originally built for ten thousand pounds. During the closure, the nearby Confederation Centre of the Arts opened a replica of the Confederation Chamber, hosting 160,000 visitors before announcing its closure in October 2024 to prepare items for the original chamber's planned reopening in 2025. Province House, it seems, inspires the same impulse it always has: the urge to keep what happened here alive.