The South Dakota State Capitol

The South Dakota State Capitol sits at the end of a long reflecting pool at the north edge of Pierre, a building that announces itself with surprising authority for a state capital this size. Construction ran from nineteen oh five to nineteen ten, and the designers, the Minneapolis firm Bell and Detweiler, gave the state a Renaissance Revival structure that could hold its own against any capitol in the country.

The dome towers over the building. It is clad in copper that has weathered to a soft green-gray, and inside its crown the murals depict the Tree of Life, acanthus leaves symbolizing power, and the pasque flower, South Dakota's state flower. In the rotunda below, four large round paintings represent the pillars of the state's economy as its founders understood them: agriculture, livestock, mining, and family. Four sculptures by serious artists, two of them by Gutzon Borglum, the same man who carved Mount Rushmore, personify Wisdom, Vision, Courage, and Integrity.

The building materials alone tell a story of how seriously the young state took this project. Indiana limestone on the exterior, Vermont marble in the corridors, Italian terrazzo on the floors. Nothing about this is the cut-rate provisionally good enough that defines so much frontier-era construction. South Dakota had spent fifteen years fighting over which town deserved the capital. Once Pierre won, the state built something meant to last.

The grounds surrounding the capitol have been expanded and landscaped over a century, and the building itself has been carefully restored. It remains the working center of state government, housing the legislature, the governor's office, and the supreme court. On a clear day, which in Pierre means most days, the copper dome is visible from miles away across the river plain.