Colorado State Capitol

That gold dome is the Colorado State Capitol, and the gold is real. The dome was originally copper, but in nineteen oh eight Colorado miners donated gold leaf to replace it, honoring the eighteen fifty-eight gold rush that created Denver. The most recent regild came in twenty thirteen, Colorado gold hammered into leaf and pressed on by hand.

The building was designed by architect Elijah Myers and built between eighteen eighty-six and eighteen ninety-four from Colorado white granite quarried near Gunnison. Inside, the wainscoting is rose onyx, sometimes called Beulah red, from a small deposit near the town of Beulah south of Pueblo. The quarry is said to have been worked out for this one building.

The dome was modeled loosely on the United States Capitol, though Denver's version got real gold and Washington's did not. On the west steps, three brass markers are set into three different steps. Surveyors kept revising which one sits exactly five thousand two hundred eighty feet above sea level.

The thirteenth, fifteenth, and eighteenth steps have all held the title at different times, and all three markers remain. Free tours run inside on weekdays.