Harrisburg, PA Capitol

Harrisburg, PA Capitol

While camped at Hershey, we took the opportunity to drive up to see the capitol.  I'm happy to report that it has a dome!  Of course the original seat of government was in Philidelphia, it was later temporarily moved to Lancaster.  Harrisburg was ultimately selected because of it industrious spirit.  In 1816 the Commonwealth provided for the erection of a permanent State Capitol on a hill.  The building was completed and occupied in 1822.  Presidents Harrison, Tyler, Taylor, Lincoln, Grant and Hayes as well as the Prince of Wales, Daniel Webster and the Marquis de Lafayette had all been within its walls.  On February 2, 1897 it was totally destroyed by fire.

 A new building was erected on the same site, and dedicated on October 4, 1906.  President Theodore Roosevelt said at the dedication "the handsomeness building I ever saw!"

State Senate Chamber

This picture is of the Senate, however in the Representative chamber the chandeliers have a thousand bulbs... they are all changed once a year.  We were unable to take pictures in the Representative chamber since they were in session when we entered. 

We were able to tour the building, however there was a presentation going on in the rotunda that was loud and distracting, and echoed around the open areas.  It was a very impressive building with gold, marble, tile, murals and sculpture, probably the most beautiful capital of any we have seen.  The dome is 272 foot high, modeled after that of Michaelangelo's St Peter's in Rome and the main stairway in the rotunda after the Grand Opera House in Paris.  

Toward the Dome

 

View from the Steps

You can't see it in this shot, but our car is parked just a few cars down on the right side.  We managed to figure out the secret to using the meter and our credit card, and putting our license number into the mix, even though it took a couple of tries to get it to accept our information.  Total cost was only $3.00 for the hour we were there.  Significantly different than the $28.00 they wanted for some of the lots in Albany, we only paid $8 in Albany but had to walk a long way. 

To the Left of Steps

 Our visit to Harrisburg was brief, but very pleasant.  There was very little litter around, and really few run down houses.  If you could see further, in the photo from the capitol steps you would see the river that winds thru town.  We would have liked to spend some time walking along the river but as you can see, clouds were telling us "you better not, I'm going to get you wet if you do."