Illinois State Capitol - Former Capitols

Former Capitols

The current Capitol of Illinois is the sixth such building in the history of the state. The first was located in Kaskaskia, Illinois, a city on the Mississippi River founded by the French in 1709. Kaskaskia had been the territorial capital of Illinois since 1809, so it was deemed an appropriate location for the capital of the new state. The first capitol building was rented by the state and was by all accounts a simple two-story building which the state leased for $4.00 a day.

Wishing to site the capital in the state's interior, the first General Assembly petitioned Congress for a grant of suitable land. Congress offered, and the state accepted, a land parcel on the Kaskaskia River about eighty miles northeast of Kaskaskia. This location, which would be named Vandalia, Illinois, was selected partly with the hopes of encouraging settlers to relocate to other parts of the state which were still uninhabited. The state let its lease on the first capital in Kaskaskia expire (the building burned in 1824, and Kaskaskia was destroyed by a sudden change of the course of the Mississippi River in 1881).

In 1820, with the completion of the new, or "Second", capitol, Vandalia became the capital of the state. A third capitol was soon built for a cost of $15,000. Soon after its construction, many citizens began to advocate relocating the capitol to a location nearer the center of the state. A bill was introduced in 1833 for a statewide vote to determine a new location from a list of several choices including Alton, Jacksonville, Peoria, Springfield, Vandalia, and the state's actual geographic center. While Alton was the victor, the legislature determined the margin too small to be conclusive, and the vote was ignored. In 1836, a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln, along with colleagues of his of the legal profession, began to advocate moving the capital to Springfield. That summer the third capitol was demolished and replaced with the fourth capitol (built at a cost of $16,000) in an effort to keep the capital in Vandalia. Although the new brick structure was extravagant, the General Assembly ignored the gesture and voted to relocate the capital to Springfield on February 25, 1837.

On July 4, 1837, the first brick was laid for Illinois' fifth capitol. It was designed by John F. Rague who also designed the nearly identical Iowa Territorial Capitol. In 1853, the capitol was completed for a total sum of $260,000, almost twenty times the cost of any such previous structure. The building was designed in the Greek Revival style from stone quarried six miles (10 km) from the site. For many years, it was the largest and most extravagant capitol of the western frontier of the United States. The fifth capitol is associated with Abraham Lincoln as it was here that he argued cases before the Illinois Supreme Court, here that he served with the State Legislature, here that he first debated Stephen Douglas, here where he delivered his famous "House Divided" speech, and here where he lay in state after his assassination on May 4, 1865.

As Illinois prospered and experienced several booms in population, the fifth capitol became crowded, especially as a result of relocations after the Civil War. On February 24, 1867, the state voted to construct a new larger capitol. After breaking the ground for the sixth and current Capitol in 1868, the state recouped the costs of the fifth capitol by selling it to Sangamon County for $200,000. It served as the county court house until 1961 when the state again purchased the building and restored it as a historic landmark, the Old State Capitol State Historic Site.