Vandalia State House
The state of Illinois gave the Vandalia State House (in operation in 1836-1839, only three years) to Vandalia's county, Fayette County, for use as the county courthouse. Fayette County taxpayers paid to build the handsome porticoes added to the courthouse in the late 1850s, which made the building a structure in the Greek Revival style. The courthouse served the people of Fayette County in 1839-1933, when it reverted to the state.
In 1933, the old courthouse became the Vandalia State House State Memorial, and an extensive program of interior refitting and reconstruction began. In 1985 the building became a State Historic Site within the new Illinois Historic Preservation Agency (IHPA).
The IHPA maintains the old state house and interprets it to its brief time as Illinois's fourth capitol building in 1836-39. Guided tours are offered and visitors can also view the period rooms on their own.
Read more about this topic: Vandalia State House State Historic Site
Famous quotes containing the words state and/or house:
“I know this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men whom I could name,—if ten honest men only,—ay, if one HONEST man, in this State of Massachusetts, ceasing to hold slaves, were actually to withdraw from this copartnership, and be locked up in the county jail therefor, it would be the abolition of slavery in America. For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The talk shows are stuffed full of sufferers who have regained their health—congressmen who suffered through a serious spell of boozing and skirt-chasing, White House aides who were stricken cruelly with overweening ambition, movie stars and baseball players who came down with acute cases of wanting to trash hotel rooms while under the influence of recreational drugs. Most of them have found God, or at least a publisher.”
—Calvin Trillin (b. 1935)