Qualla: West Virginia State Capitol

West Virginia State Capitol: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Coal town guy, CC BY-SA 4.0. Charleston went through two capitols before they got one that could survive a fire. The first burned. The second, a temporary wooden replacement so flimsy locals called it the pasteboard capitol, also burned. By the time Cass Gilbert was hired to design the building that stands today, the West Virginia legislature had every reason to want stone. Gilbert gave them buff Indiana limestone, a 292-foot gold-leafed dome, and an east wing chamber he liked so much he reused the design for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Image: Coal town guy | CC BY-SA 4.0

West Virginia State Capitol: A Capital That Could Not Sit Still

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peter Fitzgerald, CC BY-SA 2.5. West Virginia could not decide where to put its capital. For nearly two decades after statehood in 1863, the seat of government bounced between Wheeling and Charleston, with Martinsburg and Clarksburg lobbying for consideration too. The legislature finally fixed Charleston as the...

Image: Peter Fitzgerald | CC BY-SA 2.5

West Virginia State Capitol: The Pasteboard Capitol

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Coal town guy, CC BY-SA 4.0. The state hastily threw up a temporary wooden capitol on Washington Street, expecting to rebuild on the same downtown site. That plan collapsed when the legislature chose a riverside lot at the eastern end of the city instead and sold the downtown property to private developers. ...

Image: Coal town guy | CC BY-SA 4.0

West Virginia State Capitol: Cass Gilbert's Last Capitol

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Coal town guy, CC BY-SA 4.0. The 1921 Capitol Building Commission picked Cass Gilbert, the New York architect whose Woolworth Building had briefly been the tallest in the world and who would later design the U.S. Supreme Court. Gilbert imagined a buff limestone Renaissance Revival structure with a dome that ...

Image: Coal town guy | CC BY-SA 4.0

West Virginia State Capitol: The Grounds and the River

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Acdixon, CC0. The Capitol faces the Kanawha River across Kanawha Boulevard, with the open quadrangle behind it framed by perpendicular east and west wings. Statues populate the plaza. Fred Torrey's Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight depicts the president, head bowed, wrapped in a robe, taking t...

Image: Acdixon | CC0