Can, every weekend, only on cspan3. We are at the south dakota State Capitol in pierre where cspan is learning more about the history of the city. The building is an example of renaissance architecture. Take you inside for a tour and to learn why pierre was chosen as the state capital. Mr. Venhuizen peer is a pretty small town as far as capitals go. Erre is another 2500 people. Small, but it is pretty remote. It was selected as the state capital because it is in the middle of this day. It is really a two or two and a half hour drive from any other major town. That presents challenges. Quite aave to drive distance. This date is by far the largest employer and it really dominates the economy here. Dakota territory was created in 1862, the original territorial capital was in yankton, in the far east corner of the territory. The territory was both north and south dakota. As the territory was settled, three distinct territories emerged. Yankton near sioux falls. You had a settlement in north dakota. And bonanza farms. And after the gold rush, there the blackment in hills. It became more and more clear that lincoln was not tenable that yankton was not tenable. A corrupt individual according to south dakota and south created a new capital. That caused a rift between the northern and southern parts of the state. By that point, the capital was in his mark and that became the capital of north dakota. Option was not a tenable for south dakota. There were probably 810 cities that contended to be capital. That vote on the strength of its position come almost perfectly in the center of south dakota. The western part of the state was almost completely unsettled by european settlers. There were native americans and that part of the state. Es claim to be centrally located was kind of hollow. But it won the initial vote. There was a second vote in 1890. Won that vote also. A final vote was held in 1904 mitchell forfeated the final time. The construction of this Capital Building, planning for it began shortly after that. That is why our Capital Building was not built until 19081910. There was i think every state sensel is built to give a of importance and permanence and especially to have an imposing structure like this built in a town like pierre. It would have stood out and made a statement about our confidence in our state and our future. Construction was set back by about a year because of a dispute about outofstate stone. Bids for this the stone to build the structure, the low bids all came in from other states including michigan and indiana. It is interesting, because that whered of an analogy for a lot of the early settlement came from. Most of our early governors came from the great lakes states. That is where a lot of the settlement came from. Withcapital was built stone almost exclusively from other states. There was a lawsuit that attempted to force the building to be built that forced it to be built with stone and there is stone available in south dakota but that case was not successful in the decision was made to go with a low bid and that is why it is built without a state of stone. Right now, we are in the rotunda of the capital. Looking around the rotunda a little bit, there are 4 wells for statues. Those wells stood empty until the states centennial in 1989 and the state commissioned for statues by dale, a sculptor and now our artist lori at. Integrity was encouraged. And represented by the 4 statues of gods. The flags, obsolete, the south dakota flag and there is a flight from dakota territory and a flag from the United States and flags for spain and france because of a controlled this territory at different times and each corner has, one corner has a white flag in one lack and one yellow and the black and one yellow and those are the native american colors of the compass. There is a lot of symbolism in the rotunda. This is the governors reception area and it was in the original Governors Office. Today, it enjoys the Governors Office and the room the governor hostto greet guests and small receptions and very often bill signing ceremonies. The first room restored one of state Capital Administration efforts began in 1976, the state capital restoration began with the u. S. Centennial in 1970s takes and ended about 1976 and ended around 1989. It was the first room restored and prior to that, it had a drop ceiling and institutional green paint and a really incredible to see how bad it a look. Trying to understand how some time in our history, people felt it was an improvement over what it looked like. The real controversy that existed in this room since it existed was a large mural on the wall behind me called progress of south dakota. N angel leading the european settlers into the territory, really trampling over the native american inhabitants who seemed to be kind of lying on the ground and being troubled by the settlers. Symbolic in some ways, but obviously, pretty controversial as our reviews of history have changed. It was a controversy for 20 or 30 years in south dakota. The 1970s, the governor as of the time attempted to resolve it by retitling the mural with the name only from our mistakes can we learn and that did not really satisfy anyone. In the 1980s, another governor governor hold a curtain that it would be headed in the problem was it had gotten so much News Coverage that everybody who visited wanted to see it and they will always opening the curtain to show it to people and it did not serve any function. Years ago, the governor at that time decided although the mural should be preserved and it cannot really be removed removed, there is a false wall built out and build to match the rest of the walls. The mural is behind the sheet rock, it is not visible to see. We have a picture to see and occasionally visitors are aware and want to see what it looks like. That is how the issue was dealt with. Maybe not the perfect answer but sometimes in the situations, there is no perfect answer. This is a statue of general William Henry harrison beadle, general beadle was born in indiana and was a Brigadier General and the civil war and came to the dakota territory after he was appointed by president grant to be the surveyor general and spent the rest of his life here. He is a very important figure in our early history particularly because of his advocacy for the school land concept. She thought the strongly that we needed to end out the operation of our stash in doubt our school our schoolndow system and pushed for system that pushed for one in each township through the state that would be owned by the state and trust for the benefit of the schools in that township. Over time, those parcels of land have been slopped into larger areas and as they are not all necessarily the same. Budget to this day, we have the Public Land Trust that operates to produce money for our school system. This was an innovative idea and one that caught on and other states that became states around at the same time, north dakota, montana, wyoming, washington copied south dakotas provision. When the u. S. Capitol invited each state to contribute 2 statues, general beadle was the first selected from south dakota. This is the twin of the statue at a u. S. Capitol. I have been comic to the capital my whole life, my grandpa served in the state senate and i used to visit him as a little kid. We have a mini School Groups who go through the capital every year. One of the things that kid most remember and what they know is the story of these blue tiles on the floor. The capital was being built, the floor was presented by stonemasons from italy and traditionally the stonemasons are allowed to sign of their work somewhere. There were so many they do not want them to do that. Stone mason each given a blue tile to place on the floor, supposedly there are 66 of them through the building. Only 55 have ever been found. If you take a tour on the state capital and with the school group, thats a lot of attention paid to trying to find as many blue tiles as you can while here. I hope when people visit the state capital they see we have a lot of pride in our state and our history. And that they also see where open about our state capital and our government. The security here is a very light touch. There are no metal detectors. We have extensive hours where people can visit. We get a lot of visitors here from out of state. Very often people trying to visit state capitals and all the byte and they are impressed how open hours that capital is and how easily you can look around. This weekend, where featuring the history of pierre, south dakota with our cable partners. Learn more about pierre and other stops in our cities tour cspan. Com. You are watching American History tv all weekend, every weekend on cspan three. Next on American History tv, author and u. S. Military history Professor John mcmanus presents an illustrated lecture titled the fallen american soldiers of world war ii, their world of combat. The National Park service, shepherd university, and Eastern National cohosted this 90 minute event as part of the lecture series marking the 150th anniversary of Antietam National cemetery. Professor mcmanus is the author of numerous world war ii books, including the deadly
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