In state capital Harrisburg, Pennsylvania has one of the most ornate state capitols in the U.S. It is the third building on the site, the first burned down in a blizzard from heating coals, and the second was so ugly it was torn down before it was completed, the one today was created to be a palace of arts. The grand staircase was modelled after the opera house in Paris, the dome after St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, and 400 state icons like incests and plants.
One of the murals of light is oil drilling because Pennsylvania was the first state to drill for oil successfully. A student of Louis Comfort Tiffany made the stained glass windows. Violet Oakley spent 35 years painting the building and was one of the few women in the early 20th century permitted to work in the building.
Apart from a Senate and House of Representatives, the state’s supreme court is also in the building. The beautiful green glass-domed roof was supposed to be in the House of Representatives but it wasn’t measured correctly and didn’t fit so it was placed in the court instead.
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