Michigan — The Spire

image courtesy of
Wikipedia and Brian Charles Watson

Another Spire
One other state besides Michigan has a long, slender spire - West Virginia - but that spire is topped with an eagle, which is very un-lance-like, and any widening at the bottom blends into the cupola roof. If you familiarize yourself with the gold cupola and spire of West Virginia, (also see the West Virginia section below on this same web page) you should have no trouble distinguishing them from Michigan's white, pointed, lance-like spire.

An Association
This whole discussion of the lance-like spire has to have a point (pun intended). It does. So where do we find an association between a lance and Michigan? In Michigan's capital city, Lansing. See, there is a point. The capitol with the slender, pointed, lance on the top of its dome is in lance-ing, . . . Lansing, Michigan.

There is more to this association than I expected. The word, "spire," is derived from Anglo-Saxon and is actually related to the word, "spear." Spires are used on buildings to give the impression of strength because of the similarity to a spear or spear point. A lance, of course, is a kind of spear. Spire - spear - lance - Lansing, Michigan.

The Michigan capitol has a very striking and unusual dome. Of the state capitols that have domes, most have cupolas with cone-shaped roofs, usually with a small finial or ball at the very top, and a few have a rod (flagstaff or lightning rod) instead. Michigan's dome is very slender compared to all the others, it is topped with a slender cupola, and that is topped with the longest and skinniest pointed thing on top of any of our capitol domes that isn't a flagstaff or a lightning rod - a slender, pointed spire. Since flagstaffs and lightning rods are not nearly as attractive as Michigan's spire, they cannot be confused.

The overall shape of Michigan's long, slender, pointed spire looks fairly similar to a jousting lance. The relief sculpture on most of the spire doesn't help the comparison, so we will admire but ignore it.

The wider bottom section of the spire resembles a vamplate, the wide cone over the jouster's hand that keeps it from sliding up the lance.

Mississippi — The Eagle, a Water Bird

image courtesy of FLY2BIGBEAR

The Eagle and Dome
Atop the Mississippi capitol dome is a particularly visible and beautiful golden eagle. Below the eagle and cupola, the main dome has a very simple form rather like water flowing out of a fountain. There are no ports or windows to interrupt the flow, just simple, smooth stone ribs the same color as the rest of the dome.

The Water
Since there are a few other capitols with eagles on top of their domes, it will help if we remember (from Mike's Cub Scout project) that eagles are water birds. For Mississippi, the eagle needs to be on a dome that reminds us of water in order to be a feature that helps us identify the state. We should then easily connect the eagle on the water-fountain dome with a memorable American body of water . . . but which one?

Within the country are both major rivers and large lakes. Many states have the same name as a river; Delaware, Missouri, Colorado, etc. The two rivers that are probably most important to the whole country are the Rio Grande and the Mississippi. We don't have a state named Rio Grande, do we? But we have other great bodies of water; the Great Lakes. Just one of them, Lake Michigan, shares its name with a state. But Lake Michigan doesn't flow like a fountain. The Mississippi River does.

An Association
When you see an eagle, a water bird, on top of the dome resembling water flowing from a fountain, remember the flowing Mississippi River. Mississippi.

 
 
image courtesy of
szlea

 
As you can see from the image above, a full view of the front of this capitol is hard to get through the trees. Luckily, Edward Crim has the shot below with no leaves on the trees.

image courtesy of
Edward Crim photographer, the State Capitols project

Missouri — The River Rafts

Front (south face)
image courtesy of The Rebel At

This capitol has unique decorative panels on the dome that always show in photos. They are raised, flat, brown panels similar in shape to the windows on the domes of our National Capitol and several state capitols (Texas for example), but they are solid panels and not windows. No other current capitol dome has panels like them.

An Association
To connect the raised, flat, brown, decorative panels on the Missouri capitol dome to the state, we will use one of the works of a famous Missourian, Mark Twain. Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) was from Hannibal, Missouri. One of his most famous and loved works is Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, set in the fictional St. Petersburg, Missouri and on the Mississippi River, which forms the eastern boundary of Missouri. It is the tale of Huck Finn and Jim, a slave Huck is determined to help to escape to freedom. Much of their journey is made on their wood raft, a relatively flat, brown panel of sorts that floats, which raises it a bit above water level. So, when you see the solid brown panels on the dome, think of Huck Finn and Jim's raft from the story set in Missouri and written by Mark Twain, Missourian. Missouri.

The Missouri statehouse is a large, classic capitol that is visible from all around Jefferson City because of its location on top of a bluff overlooking the Missouri River. The building and grounds are lavished with sculpture, fountains and other artwork. This is because of a miscalculation when funds were being appropriated for the construction; they ended up with about a million dollars more than intended! When the error was discovered, it was ruled that since the money was appropriated for the capitol, it had to be spent on the capitol. The result is a beautifully decorated capitol that is also an art museum.

Two Fronts?
Though it looks typical of our classic, domed capitols, the Missouri capitol presents a unique identification problem; it appears to have two fronts. Some other capitols have a rear face very similar to the front face, but I have not found another one where many sources do not distinguish the difference. The problem is, the two faces have a major difference in the entrance colonnades. The south face has a straight colonnade with a triangular pediment over it, and the north face has a curved colonnade and no pediment. If they see a photo of each, most people will think they are looking at the fronts of two different buildings.

The front of the Missouri capitol is its south face.* The statue on top of the dome would surely face people approaching the front, and she faces south.

*I have been informed via email from a site visitor that
the north face is the front of this capitol. I am awaiting confirmation and information before I alter my text.

Oklahoma — The Surprised Expression
Note to those familiar with this capitol: Petunia is very unique but is not in many pictures, so I couldn't use it.

current capitol
image courtesy of Danny Merz

capitol before dome addition
image courtesy of UnCommonPhotos.com

All around the lower part of the Oklahoma capitol dome are windows with a gable over each of them. They look like eyes and eyebrows. No other capitol has gabled windows there. There are also buttresses between and below the windows, which are far from unique. They add a nose to each pair of eyes and make faces.

Those pointed-eyebrow gables give a surprised expression to the faces around this capitol dome. Try hard, I know you can see it!

An Association
Imagine the eyebrows being raised because the owner of the face is surprised and saying "OK!" OK for Oklahoma.

image courtesy of
Jeffrey Alan Van Grevenhof

The dome on the Oklahoma capitol was added recently and finished in 2002. The lower picture at right shows how the capitol, nicknamed "Old Baldy," looked before - all is the same except the upper section of the rotunda was replaced with the drum, dome, cupola, and statue.

This capitol was designed to have a dome almost from the very beginning.

South Carolina — The Copper Cupola

image courtesy of Occam

An Association
Connecting a military helmet with South Carolina can be helped with a lesson about South Carolina in the Civil War. At the start of the conflict, South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union, and Charleston Harbor was the location of the first shots fired in the war. Having this connection to the origins of the war later caused South Carolina to experience damage like no other state.

When General Sherman of the Union forces had finished his march through Georgia, he and his troops were supposed to go by steamer to Virginia. He was allowed to march through the Carolinas to get there instead. Since South Carolina had been so instrumental in the secession, he apparently was determined to destroy a great deal of it. He marched as he had through Georgia, destroying everything that could be of use to the Confederate Army. He captured Columbia, the capital, and burned most of it, the capitol building being a lucky survivor. Sherman then did little damage to North Carolina on his way to Virginia.

After this history lesson, connecting South Carolina to the Civil War and a military image should not be difficult, as long as you can dismiss the fact that the soldier and helmet pictured are from World War II instead of the Civil War. So, the capitol with the unique, copper cupola that looks like a soldier wearing an old helmet is from a state with a unique war story - South Carolina.

The dome on the South Carolina capitol is all copper, as several state capitol domes are. This is one of only two capitols, however, that have a cupola that is also all copper instead of just having a copper roof. (Kansas is the other.) The shape of this cupola roof is unique because it fans so far outward at the bottom, creating a shape very much like a helmet on a head. There are many kinds of helmets, but the similarity to the one pictured below is striking. With the wider base of the cupola looking similar to a collar and the widening dome below it similar to shoulders, it should not be hard to recognize the helmeted soldier in an image of this dome.

This type of helmet was worn by the British military in World War I, and briefly by the American troops. It was used again in World War II by The Home Guard of Great Britain, which is represented in this image.

A Civil War Note
The destruction done to South Carolina during the Civil War discussed in the association at right is remembered in the Confederate Battle Flag that flies on the capitol grounds, and in the preserved and honorably marked damage to the capitol building as shown below.

West Virginia — The Golden Lantern

image courtesy of fusion panda

2002 dome
image courtesy of
Mary Ann Sullivan, Bluffton University

Many of our state capitols have domes, and several of them are gilded, as is West Virginia's. Many also have cupolas, or lanterns, on top of the domes. This is the only one with a lantern that is completely gilded.

An Association
I think, "Look at all that gold!" when I see the gilded lantern. In the history of our country, the most famous gold rushes have been westward. West to "all that gold." West. We have two states that start with "North" and two that start with "South," but only one that starts with "West." West Virginia.

late 2005 dome
image courtesy of
Linda Weekley

This dome doesn't always look the same!
Late in 2005, the West Virginia capitol dome renovation was completed. The job included regilding. That normally does not mean a change in appearance, but in this case it meant a third change in appearance. There are photos out there showing the dome in all four of these finishes.

The original gilding on the West Virginia capitol dome was somewhat similar to how it looks now. The exact difference I'm not sure about. In the Middle 1970s, the dome was finished with gold paint instead of gilding, with the background painted blue, giving it another similar but dull finish. In 1988 it was entirely gilded, as the two pictures at far right show. The third change came with the 2005 renovation.