The Tennessee State Capitol, located in Nashville, Tennessee, is the

seat of government The seat of government is (as defined by ''Brewer's Politics'') "the building, complex of buildings or the city from which a government exercises its authority". In most countries, the nation’s capital is also seat of its government, thus that ...

for the U.S. state of Tennessee. It serves as the home of both houses of the

Tennessee General Assembly The Tennessee General Assembly (TNGA) is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is a part-time bicameral legislature consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives. The Speaker of the Senate carries the additional title ...

–the

Tennessee House of Representatives The Tennessee House of Representatives is the lower house of the Tennessee General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Tennessee. Constitutional requirements According to the state constitution of 1870, this body is to consis ...

and the Tennessee Senate–and also contains the governor's office. Designed by architect William Strickland (1788–1854) of Philadelphia and Nashville, it was built between 1845 and 1859 and is one of Nashville's most prominent examples of

Greek Revival architecture The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...

. The building, one of 12

state capitols This is a list of state and territorial capitols in the United States, the building or complex of buildings from which the government of each U.S. state, the District of Columbia and the organized territories of the United States, exercise its ...

that does not have a dome, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 and named a National Historic Landmark in 1971. The tomb of James K. Polk, the 11th president of the United States, is on the capitol grounds.

Description

The Tennessee State Capitol sits atop Capitol Hill, the highest point in Downtown Nashville. It is surrounded by a number of state government buildings, including the Tennessee Supreme Court building for the Middle Tennessee Grand Division. Directly south of the capitol is Legislative Plaza, a public plaza located between a number of state office buildings. North of the capitol is

Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park, also known as the Bicentennial Mall, is an urban state park in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. The park is located northwest of the Tennessee State Capitol building and was opened on June 1, 1996, to commemor ...

, a large public park that traces the state's history and geographic features. The Tennessee State Capitol is modeled off of an Ionic temple, incorporating Greek Revival architecture, and is composed of limestone quarried from nearby. It measures , and is approximately tall. The north and south porticoes each contain eight Ionic columns, and the east and west porticoes, which do not span the entire length of the structure, contain six. All of the columns are capped by

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

s. On top of the roof is a tall round tower, modeled after the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, that sits on a square pedestal-like structure. The tower contains eight Cornithian columns. The tower is topped by a tall cupola and

finial A finial (from '' la, finis'', end) or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the Apex (geometry), apex of a d ...

, which in turn is topped by a flag pole. The building contains three stories. The first floor contains the office of the Governor and other state officials, including cabinet members. The House and Senate chambers are found on the second floor, as well as a room which housed the

Tennessee State Library and Archives The Tennessee State Library and Archives (TSLA), established in 1854, currently operates as a unit of the Tennessee Department of State. According to the Tennessee Blue Book, the Library and Archives "collects and preserves books and records of hi ...

until 1953.

History

Site history

When Tennessee was admitted to the Union on June 1, 1796, as the 16th state, Knoxville was its first capital. Over the next thirty years, the seat of government alternated between Kingston, Nashville, Knoxville, and Murfreesboro, before being moved to Nashville in 1826. The 1835 state constitution mandated that the General Assembly choose a permanent capital. In 1843, Nashville was chosen as the capital. The prominent Nashville hilltop site of what is now the Tennessee State Capitol was formerly occupied by the Holy Rosary Cathedral (no longer extant), the first Roman Catholic cathedral church in Nashville (with the Diocese of Nashville at that time once comprising the entire territory of the State of Tennessee). The property was purchased by the city of Nashville for $30,000, and conveyed to the state government for $1.

Design and construction

The State Capitol was designed by renowned Philadelphia architect William Strickland, who modeled it after a Greek Ionic temple. The prominent lantern structure located above the roof line of the Tennessee state capitol is a design based upon the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens that honors the Greek god

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; grc, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theatre. The Romans ...

doing battle with Tyrrhenian pirates. The cornerstone of the Tennessee state capitol was itself laid on July 4, 1845 and the building was completed fourteen years later in 1859. Its final cost was approximately $900,000 (). View from Capitol

The American Society of Civil Engineers has designated the building as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in recognition of its innovative construction, which made unusually extensive use of stone and was an early example of the use of structural iron. Both the interior and exterior are built with limestone from a quarry about from the site. Some interior columns were built from single pieces of stone, requiring massive wooden derricks to hoist them into place. Wrought iron, instead of wood, was used for the roof trusses to reduce the building's vulnerability to fire. Tennessee State Capitol in July 2021

Commercial, convict, and slave labor were used in the project. Fifteen enslaved Black men worked on carving the Capitol's limestone cellar from 1845 to 1847; Nashville stonemason A.G. Payne was paid $18 a month for their labor. It is believed to be "the most significant project where the ennesseestate government rented slave labor". Strickland died five years before the building's completion and was entombed in its northeast wall. His son, F. W. Strickland, supervised completion of the structure. William Strickland also designed the St. Mary's Cathedral (located along the base of the capitol hill), as well as Downtown Presbyterian church located just a few blocks away from the state capitol.

Samuel Dold Morgan Samuel Dold Morgan (November 8, 1798 – June 10, 1880), was an American businessman, builder, and manufacturer, known as "The Merchant Prince of Nashville." Early life Samuel Dold Morgan was born in Staunton, Virginia. Career Morgan move ...

(1798–1880), chairman of the State Building Commission overseeing the construction of the Tennessee State Capitol, is entombed in the southeast corner near the south entrance.

Monuments

Monuments on the Capitol grounds include statues of two of the three Tennessee residents who served as President of the United States: Andrew Jackson by Clark Mills and

Andrew Johnson Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. He assumed the presidency as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a Dem ...

by Jim Gray. The second President from Tennessee, James K. Polk, is buried in a tomb on the grounds, together with his wife, Sarah Childress Polk. Other monuments on the grounds include the Sgt. Alvin C. York Memorial by Felix de Weldon, the Tennessee Holocaust Commission Memorial, the Sam Davis Memorial at the southwest corner of the Capitol grounds, and the Memorial to Africans during the

Middle Passage The Middle Passage was the stage of the Atlantic slave trade in which millions of enslaved Africans were transported to the Americas as part of the triangular slave trade. Ships departed Europe for African markets with manufactured goods (first ...

at the southwest corner of Capitol grounds. The Charles Warterfield

Reliquary A reliquary (also referred to as a ''shrine'', by the French term ''châsse'', and historically including ''wikt:phylactery, phylacteries'') is a container for relics. A portable reliquary may be called a ''fereter'', and a chapel in which it i ...

is a group of broken limestone columns and fragments removed and saved from the State Capitol during the mid-1950s restoration, located near the northern belvedere on Capitol Drive. In 1957, the Capitol building was struck by an F2 tornado. On May 30, 2020, the Sen. Edward Ward Carmack Memorial located above the Motlow Tunnel near the south entrance was toppled by protestors during a demonstration in response to the police murder of George Floyd. During the Nashville Autonomous Zone the area near where the statue stood has been unofficially claimed by protesters as "Ida B. Wells Plaza", after the anti-lynching advocate whose death had been advocated by Carmack. The building housed a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest between 1978 and 2021. This bust resulted from legislation introduced by Democratic state senator and Sons of Confederate Veterans member

Douglas Henry Douglas Selph Henry Jr. (May 18, 1926 – March 5, 2017) was an American attorney and Democratic politician. He was the longest-serving member of the Tennessee legislature. He was a member of the Tennessee Senate, representing the 21st district ...

in 1973, and its presence was controversial since its dedication. Legislation was proposed in 2017 towards moving it to the Tennessee State Museum. The

Tennessee Historical Commission The Tennessee Historical Commission (THC) is the State Historic Preservation Office for the U.S. state of Tennessee. Headquartered in Nashville, it is an independent state agency, administratively attached to the Department of Environment and Con ...

voted 25-1 on March 9, 2021, to move the bust to a museum as soon as possible. The bust was removed on July 23, 2021, and was relocated to the Tennessee State Museum three days later. File:Tennessee state capitol house chamber 2002.jpg, Inside the House Chamber from the viewing gallery File:Tennessee state capitol house floor 2002.jpg, Inside the House Chamber as seen from the floor File:Andrew Jackson Statue Nashville.jpg, Andrew Jackson Statue located on the grounds of the Tennessee State Capitol File:Tennessee State Capitol Nighttime.jpg, Night time view of the Capitol File:James Polk Grave.jpg, Tomb of James K. Polk located on the grounds of the Tennessee State Capitol

References

External links

Tennessee State Museum
- State Capitol information
Tennessee Legislature WebsiteDocumentary: Tennessee State Capitol - Grounded in Tradition
{{National Register of Historic Places Government buildings completed in 1859 State capitols in the United States Government of Tennessee National Historic Landmarks in Tennessee Buildings and structures in Nashville, Tennessee Greek Revival architecture in Tennessee Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks Government buildings in Tennessee Tourist attractions in Nashville, Tennessee Government buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Tennessee National Register of Historic Places in Nashville, Tennessee James K. Polk Statues of Andrew Jackson Tombs of presidents of the United States