page_title: Old Louisiana State Capitol
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Old Louisiana State Capitol / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The Old Louisiana State Capitol burns on 28 December 1862, during the Union occupation of Baton Rouge.
context_page_description: The Old Louisiana State Capitol, also known as the State House, is a historic government building, and now a museum, at 100 North Boulevard in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S.A.. It housed the Louisiana State Legislature from the mid-19th century until the current capitol tower building was constructed in 1929-32.
  It was built to both look like and function like a castle and has led some locals to call it the Louisiana Castle, the Castle of Baton Rouge, the Castle on the River, or the Museum of Political History; although most people just call it the old capitol building. The term "Old State Capitol" in Louisiana is used to refer to the building and not to the two towns that were formerly the capital city: New Orleans and Donaldsonville.
  The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 12, 1973, and was designated a National Historic Landmark on May 30, 1974.
context_section_description: In 1846, the state legislature in New Orleans decided to move the seat of government to Baton Rouge. As in many states, representatives from other parts of Louisiana feared a concentration of power in the state's largest city. In 1840, New Orleans' population was about 102,000, making it the fourth-largest city in the U.S. The 1840 population of Baton Rouge, on the other hand, was only 2,269.
  On September 21, 1847, the city of Baton Rouge donated to the state of Louisiana a $20,000 parcel of land for a state capitol building. The land donated by the city for the capitol stands high atop a bluff facing the Mississippi River, a site that some believe was once marked by the red pole, or baton rouge, which French explorers claimed designated a Native American council meeting site.
  New York architect James H. Dakin was hired to design the Baton Rouge capitol building, and rather than mimic the national Capitol Building in Washington, as so many other states had done, he conceived a Neo-Gothic medieval-style castle overlooking the Mississippi.
  In 1859, the statehouse was featured and favorably described in De Bow's Review, the most prestigious periodical in the antebellum South. Mark Twain, however, as a steamboat pilot in the 1850s, loathed the sight of it, "It is pathetic ... that a whitewashed castle, with turrets and things ... should ever have been built in this otherwise honorable place."
  In 1862, during the Civil War, Union Admiral David Farragut captured New Orleans, and the seat of government retreated from Baton Rouge. The Union's occupying troops first used the capitol building — or "old gray castle,"  as it was once described — as a prison, and then to garrison African-American troops under General Culver Grover. While used as a garrison the building caught fire twice. This sequence of events transformed Louisiana's capitol into an empty, gutted shell abandoned by the Union Army.
  By 1882 the statehouse was totally rebuilt by architect and engineer William A. Freret, who is credited with the installation of the spiral staircase and the stained glass dome, which are the interior focal points. The refurbished statehouse remained in use until 1932, when it was abandoned for the new Louisiana State Capitol building. The Old State Capitol has since been used to house Federally-chartered veterans organizations, and as an office of the Works Progress Administration, among other things.
caption: The statehouse burns on 28 December 1862
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