page_title: Alabama State Capitol
section_title: Current capitol building
hierarchical_section_title: Alabama State Capitol / History / Current capitol building
caption_attribution_description: English: First inauguration of Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederate States of America at Montgomery, Alabama, February 18, 1861. Lithographs based on this image were published from the 1860s onward, however, the actual photograph was first published in Dudley H. Miles' The photographic history of the Civil War. New York: The Review of Reviews Co., 1912, v.9, p.291.
context_page_description: The Alabama State Capitol, listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the First Confederate Capitol, is the state capitol building for Alabama. Located on Capitol Hill, originally Goat Hill, in Montgomery, it was declared a National Historic Landmark on December 19, 1960.
  Alabama has had five political capitals during its history since it was designated as a territory of the United States. The first was the territorial capital in St. Stephens in 1817; the state organizing convention was held in Huntsville in 1819, and the first "permanent" capital was designated in 1820 as Cahaba. The legislature moved the capital to Tuscaloosa in 1826, where it was housed in a new three-story building. Finally, in 1846, the capital was moved again, when Montgomery was designated. These changes followed the development of greater population in the state, as European-American settlers moved in, often accompanied by their slaves, or purchasing more enslaved African Americans after arrival here. Large parts of the state were developed for King Cotton, and the population spread across it.
  The 1826 State House in Tuscaloosa was later used as Alabama Central Female College.
context_section_description: The current capitol building was built from 1850 to 1851, with Barachias Holt as supervising architect. Holt, originally from Exeter, Maine, was a master mechanic by trade.  Following his work on the capitol, he created a successful sash, door, and blind factory in Montgomery.
  The new building used the brick foundations and general layout of Button's previous structure, with modifications by Holt.  The modifications included a full three-story building over a basement and a three-story front portico, this time without a pediment.  Holt's dome was a departure from the previous work also; his wood and cast iron dome was supported on a ring of Corinthian columns and topped with a simple twelve-sided glazed lantern. John P. Figh and James D. Randolph were the principal contractors. Figh had previously completed extensive brickwork on the William Nichols-designed campus for the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. Randolph was in charge of the carpentry work, which was likely accomplished by subcontractors.  Nimrod E. Benson and Judson Wyman were the building supervisors.
  The new capitol building was first occupied by the Alabama Legislature on October 1, 1851.  The clock over the portico was installed in February 1852. The clock, along with a bell, was purchased by the City of Montgomery and presented to the state in 1852.  In proportion to the capitol building, the clock appears as a square white box with black dials and crowned with a gabled roof. The dials are 10 feet (3.0 m) in diameter with 4-foot (1.2 m) minute hands and a 3-foot (0.91 m) hour hands.  It has been criticized as architecturally inappropriate on various occasions since its initial installation.  
  With the secession of Alabama and six other Deep South states and subsequent formation of the Confederacy in February 1861, the building served as its first capitol until May 22, 1861. A commemorative brass marker in the shape of a six-pointed star is set into the marble floor of the front portico at the precise location where Jefferson Davis stood on February 18, 1861, to take his oath of office as the only President of the Confederate States of America.
  In 1961 Governor John Patterson flew a seven-starred version of the Stars and Bars over the capitol for several days in celebration of the centennial of the Civil War. His successor, George Wallace, raised the Confederate Battle Flag over the dome on April 25, 1963, as a symbol of defiance to the federal government; this was the date of his meeting with U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to discuss desegregation of the University of Alabama .  
  The flag continued to be flown over the capitol for almost 30 years. Several African American legislators and members of the state chapter of the NAACP were arrested in 1988 after attempting to remove the flag. In 1991 the flag was removed during renovations to the dome, and its return was barred by a 1993 state court decision. It ruled that an 1895 state statute allows only the national and state flags to be flown over the capitol building.
  The building served as home to the Alabama Legislature until 1985, when it moved to the new Alabama State House. Officially, this move was temporary, since the Alabama Constitution requires that the Legislature meet in the capitol. In 1984, a constitutional amendment was passed that allowed the Legislature to move to another building if the capitol were to be renovated.  The renovation started in 1985 and was completed in 1992 by the architecture group Holmes and Holmes. When the capitol was reopened, the Governor of Alabama and numerous other state offices moved back into the building, but the legislature remained at the State House.
  On May 7, 2009, the legislature reconvened in the capitol building for the first time since September 20, 1985, due to flooding in the State House. This required some adapting, as the capitol did not have desks in the House chamber, and those in the Senate chamber were 1861 replicas. Neither chamber has a computerized voting system.  The capitol building's heating and air conditioning is supplied fr
caption: Inauguration of Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederate States of America on the steps of the capitol building on February 18, 1861.
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