Missouri State Capitol

Missouri's government has met in Jefferson City since 1826, and this is the third capitol on the bluff. The second burned after lightning struck it on February 5, 1911. The New York firm of Tracy and Swartwout designed the replacement, finished in 1917 and occupied the next year. Its dome, loosely modeled on St. Peter's in Rome, rises 238 feet to Sherry Fry's bronze of Ceres, and its bronze entrance doors, each thirteen by eighteen feet, were the largest cast since Roman times. James Earle Fraser's thirteen-foot Thomas Jefferson stands at the south entrance, and bronzes of Lewis and Clark flank the grand staircase inside.

The building is also a gallery. In 1935 Thomas Hart Benton, home in Missouri after years in New York, was commissioned to paint the walls of the House Lounge. A Social History of the State of Missouri, which he later called his best work, set off a fight because it put slavery, the outlaw Jesse James and the Kansas City boss Tom Pendergast into the state's official history.

The first floor holds the Missouri State Museum, formed in 1923 from a soldiers and sailors memorial hall and a resources museum, with its History and Resources halls and a collection that includes more than 130 Civil War flags. Free guided tours of the building run year-round, by reservation at least a day ahead, and last forty-five minutes to an hour. The House Lounge is in use while the legislature sits, from January to mid-May, so spring visitors often cannot see the mural.