Building
The building is situated on 6.7 acres (27,000 m²) of land on top of Beacon Hill in Boston, adjacent to the Boston Common on Beacon Street. It was built on land once owned by John Hancock, Massachusetts's first elected governor.
Before the current State House was completed during 1798, Massachusetts's government house was the Old State House on Court Street. For his design for the building, architect Charles Bulfinch was inspired by two buildings of London: William Chambers's Somerset House, and James Wyatt's Pantheon.
A major expansion of the original building was completed in 1895. The architect for the annex was Bostonian Charles Brigham.
During 1917 the east and west wings were completed. Designed by architects Sturgis, Chapman & Andrews.
Read more about this topic: Massachusetts State House
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“The rage for road building is beneficent for America, where vast distance is so main a consideration in our domestic politics and trade, inasmuch as the great political promise of the invention is to hold the Union staunch, whose days already seem numbered by the mere inconvenience of transporting representatives, judges and officers across such tedious distances of land and water.”
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—David Hume (1711–1776)