The Wisconsin State Capitol, located in Madison, Wisconsin, houses both chambers of the Wisconsin Legislature along with the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the Office of the Governor. Completed in 1917, the building is the fifth to serve as the Wisconsin capitol since the first territorial legislature convened in 1836 and the third building since Wisconsin was granted statehood in 1848. The Wisconsin State Capitol is the tallest building in Madison, a distinction that has been preserved by a state law that prohibits buildings within of the Capitol from being taller than the columns surrounding the dome. The Capitol is located at the southwestern end of the Madison Isthmus in downtown Madison, bordered by streets that make up the Capitol Square.
First State Capitol, 1838–1863 The first capitol of Wisconsin Territory, upon its separation from Michigan Territory in 1836, was a prefabricated wood-frame council house without heat or water that had been sent hastily to Belmont, the temporary territorial capital. The council house and an associated lodging house still stand and are operated by the Wisconsin Historical Society as the First Capitol Historic Site. Legislators met there for 42 days, tasked with among other things choosing a site for the permanent capital. "Madison City", then an uninhabited plot of land owned by delegate James Duane Doty, was chosen. Until a capitol building had been constructed there, legislative sessions were to be held in Burlington (now part of Iowa).Mollenhoff, David V. Madison, a History of the Formative Years, University of Wisconsin Press (), 1982.
From the beginning, Doty had laid out the plat of Madison City around a large central square which would house the capitol building. Construction on the first capitol building in Madison began with the laying of the ceremonial cornerstone on July 4, 1837. The building was constructed out of stone cut from Maple Bluff and oak cut locally. It was a small but typical frontier capitol that cost $60,000 to build (equivalent to $ in ).
In 1838, Iowa Territory was split off from Wisconsin Territory, removing the temporary capital at Burlington from Wisconsin. Since construction on the Madison capitol was well underway, the legislature agreed to meet there beginning on November 26, 1838. However, the building was not completed in time, and for weeks the legislators held their meetings in the basement of the American Hotel. When the legislative chambers were ready, the delegates moved in, only to find that the building still lacked insulation and did nothing to protect them from the freezing winter weather.
Doty was responsible for disbursing the federal funds that were provided to build the Capitol, but several thousand dollars could not be accounted for. Without that federal money, the territorial legislature was forced to issue its own bonds to complete the unfinished building. By the time these bonds were issued in 1841, Doty had been named governor of Wisconsin Territory and began using his position to ensure that Madison would remain the capital.
Unhappy with the quality of the building they had been provided, the legislature considered moving to Milwaukee and having the Madison capitol converted into a penitentiary, although this measure failed. The Capitol's ill-fitting tin dome led the inadequate structure to be derisively nicknamed "Doty's Washbowl". Work continued on the building on and off until 1844, and the cost of the construction was double the amount the legislature had authorized. To keep the capitol in Madison, the owner of the Madison Hotel offered free room and board to legislators. As conditions improved, the calls to move the legislative seat eventually subsided.
Madison in its early years had a reputation as a lawless frontier town, where gambling and heavy drinking were rampant, and the Capitol was not immune, as its legislators often partook in these activities. In 1842, during a heated argument over the appointment of a sheriff in Grant County, delegate James Russell Vineyard shot and killed Charles C. P. Arndt on the floor of the Wisconsin Territorial Council chamber in the Capitol. Vineyard was indicted for murder in the same building but was ultimately acquitted. Charles Dickens (who had been doing a lecture tour of the United States at the time of the incident) described the attack as an example of the violent depravity of American culture in his American Notes for General Circulation.
As Wisconsin Territory prepared to become a state, the Capitol was the site of its two constitutional conventions in 1846 and 1847. The state constitution drafted at the 1846 convention was rejected by voters, but the second constitution was successful and remains the governing document of the state today. When Wisconsin was granted statehood on May 29, 1848, the 1837 building remained in use, becoming the first Wisconsin state capitol. Since it lacked enough space for the new state government apparatus, the state began renting rooms in nearby buildings until a replacement could be built.
Second State Capitol, 1857–1904 Construction
On January 15, 1857, Governor Coles Bashford wrote to the legislature that the existing Capitol was inadequate in size for the growing state and that it lacked fireproof storage facilities for state records. He suggested that the Capitol should either be renovated or relocated, possibly to a different city. To prevent such a move, in a campaign led by Horace A. Tenney, the city of Madison offered to cover most of the costs of a $100,000 expansion (equivalent to $ in ) to the Capitol, asking the state to spend $25,000 for its part. The state legislature approved the appropriation on February 28, and Madison architects August Kutzbock and Samuel Hunter Donnel were hired to design the annex.
Construction began in July 1857, but progress was slow at first, and little work had been done by early 1858. Upon investigation, a state senate committee discovered that the city actually intended to construct an entirely new capitol on the square, and that the "enlargement" they had approved was only the first of five intended construction phases for a planned $500,000 building. While some state legislators thought this was a needed improvement, others considered the price exorbitant and urged that the capitol be temporarily moved to Milwaukee until a new building could be completed. Many Madisonians feared that if the capitol was moved "temporarily", it would never return to Madison.
A heated debate ensued in the state legislature. The city of Milwaukee offered to provide the legislators with free apartments if they moved the capitol. The city of Madison, despite having taken on substantial debt to build the capitol "annex" and other public projects, and suffering from the nationwide economic Panic of 1857, offered them free use of the new City Hall building (a promise the city was later forced by its debt to withdraw). When the proposed Milwaukee move was put to a vote in the State Assembly on May 15, 1858, the bill passed with 41 in favor and 38 opposed. However, Assemblyman James H. Knowlton, who had voted for the bill, made a speech against it and then asked that the bill be reconsidered."Removal of the Capitol", Milwaukee Sentinel, May 17, 1858, front page. The motion to reconsider passed by one vote, the total being 39–38. On the second vote, Knowlton and two other assemblymen changed their votes, while some other members who had been absent for the first vote joined in, leading to a total of 41 votes in favor and 41 against. Since the vote was tied, the bill was not adopted, and Madison remained the state capital.Durrie, Daniel Steele. A history of Madison, the capital of Wisconsin; including the Four Lake country, 1874."No. 756 A, a bill for an act to provide for the temporary removal of the State Capitol to the city of Milwaukee", Journal of the Assembly of Wisconsin 1858 volume 2, pages 2015–2018.
The first phase of the new building, the East Wing, was completed in 1859. The Assembly promptly moved into the East Wing's large chamber, leaving the Senate in the old building. Construction began on the West Wing in 1861, and while the outbreak of the Civil War caused delays, it was completed in 1862. Demolition of the 1837 building began in May 1863, allowing work on the other three phases (North and South wings and the central rotunda) to begin. The South Wing was completed in January 1866 and was initially used as the offices of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.
State officials were unsatisfied with the rotunda designed by Kutzbock, instead preferring a larger dome similar in style to the one that had recently been completed atop the United States Capitol. Kutzbock resigned as architect of the Capitol over the issue, and Stephen Vaughn Shipman was brought in to replace him.Hitchcock, Henry-Russell. Temples of Democracy: the State Capitols of the U.S.A., Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976. The building was completed in 1869, with the fourth and final North Wing housing the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the State Library.
Landscape architect Horace Cleveland was appointed by the Wisconsin Board of Park Commissioners in 1872 to design the Capitol Square park surrounding the building.Wisconsin State Capitol, National Register of Historic Places Information Form, National Park Service. Retrieved April 16, 2026. However, the landscaping plan never came to fruition, in part because most of the region's stonemasons were busy rebuilding Chicago after its Great Fire of 1871, and in part because of controversy over the decision to put up an iron fence around the square. Where Cleveland had proposed four fountains and a bandshell, only one fountain was built, a copy of the famed Centennial Fountain in Philadelphia.
Residing in the Capitol basement during this period was Old Abe, a live bald eagle which had been the mascot of the 8th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. When the regiment's tour of duty ended in September 1864, the eagle was donated to the state, which set up a two-room apartment for Old Abe and his caretakers. In March 1866, a second eagle given the name "Andy Johnson" was donated to the Capitol by the 49th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment. The two eagles fought numerous times, and Andy died in 1874 after being wounded by Old Abe. Old Abe died in 1881 after inhaling smoke from a small fire in the Capitol basement. His remains were taxidermied and put on permanent display in the Capitol rotunda.
Expansion, 1882–1884 Finding that the building had again become inadequate in size, the legislature appropriated $200,000 in 1882 (equivalent to $ in ) to expand the north and south wings of the Capitol. Plans were drawn up by local architect D. R. Jones. Bidding was opened to contractors, but none of the bidders said that they could complete the requested work within the provided budget. Jones revised his plans twice before Milwaukee builder John Bentley, Bentley's son Thomas, and Oscar F. Nowlan of Janesville submitted a successful bid. Construction was to be completed by the end of 1883.
Construction was nearly complete when, on November 8, 1883, a portion of the south wing extension collapsed, killing five workers and injuring 20 others."Capitol Collapse", Historic Madison Inc. of Wisconsin. Retrieved April 16, 2026. Witnesses to the disaster included a young Frank Lloyd Wright, who later wrote that the experience continued to haunt him throughout his life and his career as an architect. The inquest into the cause of the accident was led by Dane County district attorney and future Governor Robert M. La Follette. Jones and Nowlan, as well as Milwaukee architect Henry C. Koch, who had consulted on the design, were found guilty of negligence. Work on the expansions was ultimately completed around November 1884, under the direction of Chicago architect William W. Boyington.
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