Becoming a Capital: The Politics of Pennsylvania's Third Seat

Pennsylvania has had three capital cities. The first was Philadelphia, which served as capital from colonial times through the early years of the republic. Philadelphia was also the capital of the United States for a decade while the federal city at Washington was being built. Lancaster served as Pennsylvania's capital from seventeen ninety-nine to eighteen twelve. Then, in October eighteen twelve, the legislature voted to move the seat of government to Harrisburg, and it has remained here ever since.

The reasons behind the choice were mostly practical. Pennsylvania's population was spreading rapidly westward, and the legislature increasingly needed a location accessible to both the eastern commercial establishment and the growing communities west of the Alleghenies. Harrisburg sat at roughly the geographic center of the state. Its position on the Susquehanna River and at the intersection of major roads made it reachable from most directions.

There was also a political dimension. Philadelphia's dominance over the state's affairs had long irritated legislators from the interior. Moving the capital inland was a way of diluting that dominance.

The first purpose-built capitol for Harrisburg was a modest structure completed in the early eighteen hundreds. It was replaced by a second building, which burned in eighteen ninety-seven. The present capitol opened in nineteen oh six. In just under two centuries as the state capital, Harrisburg has housed three separate capitol buildings, witnessed the Civil War's closest call on its own streets, endured two historic floods, and survived the worst commercial nuclear accident in American history just ten miles downstream.

For a city of fewer than fifty thousand people, that is an unusually eventful record.