The old state capitol building in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is also known as the “castle on the river” — or, according to Mark Twain, “the ugliest thing on the Mississippi.” First completed in 1850, the old state capitol saw not just fiery debates, but also multiple actual fires, fistfights, and other fracases in its roughly 80 years of legislative use.
Oopsie!
In 1929, following a failed impeachment attempt, Governor Huey P. Long ordered the construction of a new state capitol (okay, these two events were probably unrelated, but I like to think Governor Long blamed the building).
He probably didn’t have warm feelings about the new state capitol, where he was shot to death in 1935, either.
Now a museum, the old state capitol was deliberately designed to be different from all of the stately, classic, dare we say tasteful capitol buildings being built in the style of the nation’s capitol. Instead, the original architect chose a neo-Gothic look with a generous splash of Victorian, and the architect who restored the building in the 1880s (after those pesky Union soldiers burned it hollow) added a fourth floor, spiral staircase, and stained glass accents to seal the deal.
Like any good castle, the old Louisiana state capitol is haunted, in this case by the ghost of Sarah Morgan Dawson, author of (oh dear) A Confederate Girl’s Diary, later published as The Civil War Diary of a Southern Woman. For $2, visitors to the old state capitol can watch a 13-minute 4D film about Sarah called The Ghost of the Castle.
Are her eyes following you? I’m sure it’s just an illusion.
Anyway, the new state capitol building is boring,
but we’ll always have the old state capitol, described by Twain as “pathetic.” Upon witnessing its reconstruction after the Civil War, Twain lamented seeing “this architectural falsehood undergoing restoration and perpetuation in our day, when it would have been so easy to let dynamite finish what a charitable fire began, and then devote this restoration-money to the building of something genuine.”
Lighten up, Samuel.
Take care of yourselves and each other today, Avocados!