My visit to the Montana State Capitol

During our visit to our parents in Montana, Ryan and I dropped in on Helena for, among other things, a self-guided tour of the State Capitol. Here are some pictures from that. This brings the total number of State Capitols I've toured to five, counting Minnesota (where my grandma took me several times when I was a boy), Missouri (which I visited multiple times while living in the state, particularly during Missouri Press Association Day at the Capitol during a couple years of my early reporting career), and the three that I visited during this year's double-barreled vacation. I've also, for the record, been outside, in bare-eyeball range of, the Capitols of Nebraska, Kansas, Wisconsin and Indiana. For what it's worth.

The Centennial Bell (1889-1989), on the third-floor gallery in the central rotunda.

One of many paintings I shot pictures of in the Capitol. Eventually I stopped downloading them to add to this post.

I can't recall who this statue depicts, nor can I read the plaque at the base, but he apparently represents some Montanans who fought in the military. Behind him, of course, you might be able to make out the name "Montana" on the front of the building. It's a pity the dome was surrounded by scaffolding when I visited the place.

A wider shot of the Capitol building, from a bit farther away. The grounds were lovely and I could almost have shot a picture of a mountain within sight of it, but for the smoky haze and intervening trees through which I couldn't find a good angle.

A view from the third-floor gallery in the rotunda. I think the second-floor hallway at center leads to the governor's office.

A view from a fourth-floor gallery, as high as you can go.

Back down on the second floor, what one of those galleries looks like from below, and some of the art around it.

The governor's office. It was a Wednesday, I believe, so the open-door policy was in force, unlike at the North Dakota capitol where we happened to stop on a Saturday.

A lounge at the entrance to the House of Representatives, full of comfy benches and more art than you want to see at this time. Oddly – again, compared to the expected location of the two chambers on opposite sides of the central rotunda – both legislative chambers are in the same wing, with the Senate closer to center and the House further down, and a kind of concession stand/snack bar in between.

The House chamber itself.

The Old Supreme Court chamber, viewed from the fourth-floor gallery.

The Old Supreme Court chamber, shot through the glass of the door on the third floor, just off the rotunda on the side opposite to the Senate chamber. What else is in that wing, you ask? Pretty much government offices.

A painting depicting, I presume, the completion of an important railroad through Montana, at the top of the main staircase off the rotunda from the second to the third floor.

The floor of that main rotunda.

The central dome with some of the surrounding art.

The Senate chamber, again shot through the glass of a closed and locked door. The windows along the sides provide a view from adjacent hallways leading back toward the House of Representatives and whatnot.

The big staircase from the second-floor rotunda to the third floor.

Another one of those paintings on the third floor, this one apparently focusing on the roles of women in settling Montana.