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Built in 1888, it is the fifth building to house the state government. The first statehouse, located in Corydon, Indiana, is still standing and is maintained as a state historic site. The second building was the old Marion County courthouse which was demolished and replaced in the early 20th century.
Indiana became a state on December 11, 1816; Corydon remained the seat of government. The original Statehouse, a 40-foot-square building, was made of Indiana limestone and still stands. As more roads were built and settlement moved northward, a centrally located seat of government was needed.
The First One Hundred Years. Indiana's Statehouse saw many changes in its first hundred years. An ever changing cast of legislators, office workers, judges, and citizens walked its halls. Indianapolis grew up around the Statehouse, as nearby homes and commercial buildings were the Statehouse itself undergone updates and additions.
When the General Assembly and state officials occupied the new Indiana State House in 1887 and 1888, they found a monumental, stately, and fireproof edifice, with exterior walls constructed of brick and covered with an oolitic limestone veneer.
- Design
- Construction Dilemmas
- The Statehouse Opens
At the time of construction, Indiana's Statehouse was the most ambitiously planned state capitol in America. The architecture was influenced by the national Capitol. It is a classical Renaissance Revival style, using a cruciform plan with a central domed rotunda. The legislative chambers were placed on either side of the rotunda. Opposite ends of t...
A Detroit architect filed suit against the Commissioners in 1879, claiming that architect Edwin May had incorporated features of his design into the final version. Local architects conducted a media campaign in support of his suit, but a federal appeals court dismissed it for lack of evidence. May died in 1880. His draftsman, Adolph Scherrer, was n...
The inside of the building was first seen by the public on January 6, 1887, when the General Assembly held its first session in the new Statehouse. Work was still underway in the office areas, but the House and Senate chambers, rotunda, corridors and atriums were complete. Newspaper accounts of the event were universally favorable. One anonymous le...
Sep 7, 2022 · It was created to celebrate the 100 representatives and was added in the 1950s, according to Goben. Tabby Fitzgerald, TheStatehouseFile.com. The Indiana Statehouse is the largest statehouse in the country and is one of only eight that have all three branches of government in the same building.
The current Indiana State House is actually the second capitol building constructed in Indianapolis. The seat of government moved from Corydon to Indianapolis in 1825, four years after Alexander Ralston had laid out the city in the center of the state—the “capital in the woods.”
