(soft music) - [Announcer] You're watching a production of South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

- [Announcer] Major funding for the production of, "Our State House, A Capitol Idea," was provided by Bank West, the Mary Chilton DAR Foundation, the MDU Resources Foundation, the South Dakota Association of Realtors and by your membership in the Friends of South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

(majestic music) - [Day] The building's an incredibly beautiful piece of architecture and something that the state and the people, particularly in state government, have taken a great deal of pride in.

- [Bob] A building like this, it can't be replaced.

It is something that's part of our history.

It's something that tells us what we're all about.

- [Moisan] We've got a cherished, very cherished building here in South Dakota.

It's historic.

A lot of important things have happened in this building and it's time that we stop doin' what we're doin' and begin a process to restore it to the way it was in 1910.

- [Narrator] The jewel of the prairie, a monumental masterpiece in the middle of nowhere, rising from the prairie like the wild pasque flower.

Our State Capitol building is one of the most enduring symbols of South Dakota's independence.

(soft piano music) (engines hum) (birds chirp) The epic tale of our state house begins in 1861 with the establishment of the Dakota Territory in Yankton.

(lively music) - [Wayne] Buchanan, his last act as president before Lincoln took over, signed the bill creating Dakota Territory in March 2nd, I think, of 1861.

And Lincoln appointed all the first territorial officials and the first governor was William Jayne, he was a doctor from Illinois.

(exciting music) - [Narrator] The railroads moved westward.

The great Dakota boom was on.

With the boom came a need for a more centrally-located territorial capital.

The new territorial legislature created a nine member capital commission empowered to decide which community would be the next capital.

In order to be eligible, communities had to include offers of money and land.

- The territorial governor was a man by the name of Nehemiah Ordway and he was one of the most corrupt officials ever to set foot in this state.

He was scheming with speculators to move the capital to Bismarck.

The capital commission had to meet and decide and they had to meet in Yankton.

People in the southern part of the territory realized what was going on, they were just outraged at these people and they've hounded them, followed them all over.

They didn't want to give them a chance to meet any place.

So what they did, they got aboard a train and just as the train was going through Yankton, they met and decided they're gonna move the capital.

That was their meeting.

That's what they mean by putting their capital on wheels.

- [Narrator] Escaping the angry citizens of Yankton, the commissioners moved on to begin their search for a new capital.

On June 2nd, 1883, the capital commission picked Bismarck North Dakota as the new territorial capital.

North Dakota and South Dakota, known only as the Dakota Territory, were actively seeking their own identity, statehood.

This resulted in Congress passing the Enabling Act of 1889, which was the first step for South Dakota to become a state.

Requirements for our statehood included three things, a division and admission of North and South Dakota into the Union, a constitutional convention to be held in Sioux Falls in the summer of 1889, an October 1st election in South Dakota to ratify the constitution framed in Sioux Falls.

The results would be certified by the President of the United States before he could issue a statehood proclamation.

On July 4th, 1889 in Sioux Falls, a constitution was drafted.

The first steps of statehood were finally taken.

South Dakota was now in need of a temporary state capital.

The fight was on.

(upbeat guitar music) Pierre won the October 1st election to be the new state capital city with over 27,000 votes.

The first state legislature met 14 days after the election with the Senate meeting in the congregational church and the House meeting in the old Hughes County courthouse.

The legislature picked R.F.

Pettigrew and G.C.

Moody to represent South Dakota in Washington, DC as United States senators.

The legislature adjourned until January 7th, 1890.

Pierre was in the middle of a building boom.

Cutting it close, the temporary capitol was completed on January 1st of 1890, just days before the start of the new legislature on January 7th.

The wood frame building was located at what we now know as the intersection of Capitol Street and Nicollet Avenue.

The House of Representatives had 124 members and 44 members in the Senate.

Now that statehood had been granted and the newly elected officers were on their way to Pierre, Governor Mellette said.

- [Mellette] It was just like a new couple preparing to start housekeeping for the first time.

They did not have a single thing to commence on, not even a desk, a chair, nor any records until the legislature met in January and made a formal demand.

- [Narrator] Desks, office supplies and even the state seal would soon arrive.

This was an exciting time for Pierre and South Dakota, but new battles were brewing.

The South Dakota Constitution required that voters must decide on a location for a permanent capital during the November 1890 election.

This time Pierre and Huron were fighting to become the state capital.

This was the first time Pierre considered the bonding of public property as a means of raising money for a capital campaign.

Bonds were sold by the city.

Private contributions were also used.

Pierre raised $1 million and won the 1890 election, becoming the permanent seat of government for the new state of South Dakota In 1903, the legislature once again considered moving the capital, this time to Mitchell.

Senate Joint Resolution 1 asked for a vote of the people.

Pierre again geared itself up to take part in another statewide election on the capital location issue.

When Pierre was announced the winner, there was an almost universal demand that a substantial state building be erected to stop any further attempts at moving the capital.

Thoughts now turn toward building a new capitol building.

Outgoing Governor Charles Nelson Herreid, in his message to the 1905 legislature.

- [Charles] South Dakota needs a new state house, fireproof, commodious, and in harmony with its progress and prosperity.

The accumulating records, archives and library are in danger from destruction by fire.

The state has 82,000 acres of land donated by the Congress for a capitol.

Eventually, the congressional donation of lands will abundantly cover the cost of a new state house.

- [Narrator] Incoming governor, Samuel H. Elrod, recommended allocating $500,000 for the cost of a new building.

The 1905 legislature included their own plan.

This plan also called for the creation of a State Capitol commission, the employment of an architect and for the east wing to be built first.

Impressed with the design and look of the Montana State Capitol building, Governor Elrod convinced the legislature to hire C.E.

Bell and M.S.

Detweiler, architects of Minneapolis who drafted the plans and built the Montana building.

It was now time to address which materials would be used to construct the building.

There was no law that required or specified if South Dakota materials had to be used.

This raised the question whether to use in-state stone or out-of-state stone.

The foundation was started using native stone and field boulders, however further construction was held up for a year and a half until the 1907 legislature made a final decision on materials.

The legislature eventually agreed to an improved construction law, which required the use of South Dakota stone and materials.

Lawmakers made it clear, however, that materials from out-of-state could also be used if those materials were cheaper than anything that could be found in South Dakota by 5%.

Contractor, O.H.

Olsen of Stillwater, Minnesota, won the bid to furnish all the labor and materials for the building at a cost of $528,552.

The foundation was finally completed and work started in the remainder of the building in March of 1908.

On June 25th, to mark the fulfillment of the dreams of Pierre and the citizens of South Dakota, state officials and Masonic builders gathered at the southwest corner to take part in an impressive ceremonial moment, the laying of the cornerstone.

Governor Coe I. Crawford said during the ceremony.

- [Coe] "The new capitol will do more than comfortably accommodate the officers who are to labor within its walls for the people whom they will serve.

It will stand throughout the coming years as an expression of beauty and art.

And as the people come and go and linger within its walls, they will see it as an expression of the soul of South Dakota."

- [Narrator] Construction continued through 1908, all of 1909 and early 1910.

- When the building was built, it was really in the middle of nowhere, actually.

And if you look at some of the materials that are part of the building, there's sandstone, Bedford limestone from Indiana, Vermont White Cloud marble from Vermont, fieldstone from near Miller in Highmore, South Dakota, copper for the roof and the dome.

Most of the products that the building was made from were imported on the railroad from other places.

The craftsmanship to lay some of these big, huge blocks of limestone and sandstone, and in the early 1900s, it was amazing.

- Well all four of my grandparents got off the boat from Ireland.

Like a lot of Irish people off the boat, they didn't have any money, so they went to the capital to look for work.

And my great-grandfather was a big, handsome Irishman and he put on his best suit to go to the capitol to get work and they took one look at him and figured he wouldn't know how to work in a suit like that.

So they said, "Sorry, we're not interested."

And he went home and got into his best work clothes and my grandfather got into his best work clothes and they headed over to the house part of the capitol and they got a job.

- [Narrator] 70,000 cubic feet of cut stone was sent to Pierre by rail and used in the building.

65 laborers and mechanics worked to build the structure up to a point level with the peak of the roof, hoisting the heavy blocks of stone into place.

When the capitol was finished, I. Fanebust and Sons of Sioux Falls obtained the contract to grade and landscape the grounds around the building.

- My great-grandfather, who was a Norwegian immigrant, started a construction company in 1903 to build sidewalks, that's how they got started.

So in 1909 when they got the contract to grade the capitol grounds, that was a major, major step forward for their company.

According to the terms of the contract, they had to be finished by May 1st of 1910.

So I'm sure that they worked pretty much through the winter if weather permitted.

They landscaped and graded the entire capitol grounds, including the Capitol Lake.

- There's natural gas in the well and they captured the natural gas from the well and used part of that to heat and light the capitol building early in the 1900s.

At the same time, electrical wiring was put out concurrently with the gas and so the building had a dual capability of electricity as well as natural gas.

- [Narrator] 100,000 square feet of stone were set.

2.5 million bricks were laid.

300 tons of iron were set and 70,000 cubic feet of concrete poured.

The circular work on the dome was slow.

It involved 100 tons of iron and 350,000 bricks and 30 cars of cut stone.

The last stone was set on June 25th, 1909, one year after the laying of the cornerstone.

On June 29th, 1910, the construction on the capitol was completed.

The final cost was $951,000, all paid from the sale of public lands set aside for this purpose by the United States at the time of statehood.

South Dakota's new capitol reached 165 feet into the sky.

It was 297 feet long and 142 feet wide.

There were 119 rooms, 300 windows, 43 double doors, 150 single doors, 90,000 feet in floor space, 2,000 electric lights and 250 radiators, two elevators.

There were two steam engines of 175 horsepower each and a motor in the powerhouse which furnished the draft for heating the boilers.

The Senate Chamber's furniture was mahogany and the House of Representative's furniture was oak.

Contractor O.H.

Olsen wrote.

- [O.H.]

The people of Pierre have been most agreeable and it is with considerable regret and reluctance that I part with the people I have met, mingled and done business with, but feel assured I have given the best of my services to the state and will say without fear of contradiction that no state in the Union has received better services or better values for the expenditures and no state in the Union has as pretentious a state capitol for the amount of money invested as the state of South Dakota.

- [Narrator] Dedication of the new capitol took place June 30th, 1910.

- The capitol represents an interesting period in American architectural history.

Its roots really are in Charles Bulfinch and some of the Federalist architects responsible for Washington D.C.

They basically were kind of neoclassicists and among the neoclassicists, I mean neoclassicism took a very special turn in America, as opposed to neoclassicism in Europe, which was very aristocratic and very austere and very monumental.

You see it in the dome.

Now, the rest of the building, you don't see it in quite as much, okay, but the dome is really showy.

And it is intended to speak of a country that has matured artistically and financially as a power now, an emerging world power.

It has real presence.

It can compete with France and England and other, you know, major international powers.

We were feeling that about ourselves at the time and so the architecture didn't relinquish its uniquely American flavor, there's still kind of a pragmatism to the capitol, but it has embellishments on a fairly grand scale as well.

- [Narrator] The state was very young and had little money, but building the capitol was a priority and that meant the best artwork.

(lively string music) $40,000 was allocated to decorate the interior, which included art glass and nine murals.

Four pendentives around the dome were created by Edward Simmons.

The north pendentive represents agriculture, it depicts the goddess Ceres.

The great seal of the United States is underneath.

Another pendentive represents livestock through its depiction of Europa and Zeus.

Underneath is the seal of the nation of France.

Wisdom, industry and mining is represented.

The mural depicts the goddess Minerva.

Underneath is the seal of the nation of Spain in recognition of the United States being discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492.

The south pendentive is motherhood, also called family, and is portrayed by a child clinging to its mother.

Underneath this mural you will find the great seal of South Dakota.

At the head of the grand staircase you will find the lunette titled, "Beginning of Commerce."

On the second floor, the "Gate of Justice" mural decorates the Supreme Court Chambers.

Above the Speaker of the House in the House of Representatives is the mural, "The Peace that Passes Understanding."

Across the hall in the Senate Chambers is "Allegory of the Louisiana Purchase."

All three paintings were done by Charles Holloway.

One mural that few have seen has caused more controversy and protest than any other painting in South Dakota's capitol.

It was painted by Edwin Blashfield and originally titled "Spirit of the West."

It later became known as "Progress of South Dakota."

- Blashfield, when he painted this, was widely considered to be the best mural painter for public buildings in the United States.

They refer to him as the Dean of Mural Painting, so he is no second rate artists.

Okay and so he was painting out of his time with the symbols that were appropriate from the point of view of power at that at that time and so it was really basically a late expression of manifest destiny.

- [Narrator] In time, this painting and the building would see significant changes.

- [Day] When it was first built and government started functioning out of the building, all of state government was in that building, but as government grew and the complexity of government and different agencies were added, they kept trying to shoehorn them into the building.

Okay, so by 1932, they had to build an annex.

- [Moisan] One would not know, basically, that the annex was was added in 1932 unless you read the plaque when he came in the door.

When you come into the back of the capitol, basically most of the materials that were used in the annex duplicated the State Capitol, so basically you would think that you're coming into the same building, but actually it's a building that was added in 1932.

- [Narrator] Almost $300,000 was appropriated to build the 61,000 square foot, four story annex on the north side of the building.

The '30s were trying times, not only for the people of Pierre, but for our State Capitol.

A drought cycle lasted for the greater part of the decade.

The extreme weather parched the soil which helped accelerate problems with the foundation that had settled shortly after being built.

- Primarily the soil here is shale, pure shale and bentonite.

They're highly expansive, the soils expand and contract with water and dryness.

And probably in the late '20s or early '30s, when it began to get dry in South Dakota for the dirty '30s, intense heat and the soil dried out a lot and that was of course before lawn irrigation.

And so we had periods of dryness and periods of heavy moisture and the soil around the building kept getting bigger and more expansive and then it would contract as it dried out.

And so the building in the 1930s actually began to move.

Parts of this building actually moved as much as a foot.

Then this building had major damage to it in the '30s, in fact parts of it were not safe.

And so the government at that time, and that was during the time of the Works Progress Administration, WPA, they had the WPA workers come and to help unemployment and to help job skills and so on, came and actually they didn't restore the building, they fixed it.

And they went in underneath the rotunda, which is basically the center structure of the building and dug down in underneath the rotunda and put 12 to 14 feet of concrete footings under the rotunda and parts of the wings of the building.

And throughout that whole process, they went and they installed little brass pins in the floor throughout the whole building.

And basically that stabilization of the foundation of the building kept the building from further movement and then the WPA people fixed what was here.

And unfortunately, at the time they didn't have the money to restore the decorations and the terrazzo tile and so on, so they simply filled it in with concrete and painted over some of the decorations.

And that began the deterioration of the State Capitol in South Dakota.

- [Narrator] The beautiful earth-toned walls were now smothered with greens, browns, reds and layers and layers of paint.

Much of the stenciled artwork had disappeared, but not forever.

- It was a small town of 4,000 people and we didn't have oil or paved roads.

We had one, two lane.

One lane for each car going through town was the highway, but we were pretty small and you thought you knew everybody.

You always knew most all the politicians.

- Bushfield, Mickelson, Anderson.

- They shopped in the same grocery stores or went to the same restaurants.

- Foss, Herseth, Gubbrud- - [Narrator] Longtime lobbyist, Jeremiah Murphy, has been coming to the capitol each legislative session for over 50 years, working with his share of governors.

- Janklow, Mickelson, Miller, Janklow, Rounds, are the governors during the time I went to Pierre.

- [Narrator] Murphy's dad also called the capitol his office as he worked as a lobbyist from 1933 until 1957.

- My first memory of politics was when somebody came to our house in a highway patrol car and visited with my dad and he visited for about half an hour and then he left.

And I said, "Who is that?"

And Dad said, "Well that was the attorney general."

"Oh, what did he want with you?"

"Oh he said, he wants to be governor and he wants me to help him."

- [Narrator] That young attorney general would be sworn in as South Dakota's 18th governor in January of 1947.

However, it was 1941 when George T. Mickelson would welcome one of his proudest achievement.

- My father was speaker of the House and in 1941, and that's when my brother was born, January 31st, and my mother called him in Pierre and said, you know of course the Speaker of the House presides over the session, and said, "It's time for you to come home."

And he drove back to Selby, which is about 85 miles, and got Mother and then they drove another 20 miles to Mobridge where my brother was born in the middle of the night.

And when my father went back to the session the following week, they passed a resolution and said that he should be named George Speaker Mickelson.

- [Narrator] That baby would later share the same title as his father.

(soft music) - We were told not to bother the governor's staff and the governor too much.

And so once in a while we'd pop in and say hi, but when I was old enough to go to the Saturday matinees at the Grand Theater here in Pierre, my friends and I would take the shortcut and go cut through the capitol building.

And there was a door in the fourth floor off the Senate where you climbed these wrought iron stairs and you would go up to the dome.

I mean and we went up to the dome practically every Saturday.

You looked down and you could see all the colored glass that you see when you're on the rotunda and looking up.

And we played around up there.

- Used to go fishing and take my fishing pole down to school and the school is right across the street from the State House, the school I went to.

And you can take your pole and take it to school and then walk over to the lake and catch bullheads.

Yeah and of course that was all right, nobody cared.

I don't even remember if I had a license.

- I don't think there's a kid in Pierre to Fort Pierre that doesn't feel like they know that capitol like the back of their hand.

It's just an irresistible open place.

- There also was a tunnel in the basement of the capitol building that went to what is now the visitor's center.

And that was full of machinery and I think that was where the heat for the capitol was.

And we'd turn on a little light and it was all kind of dark and wet and everything so we went through there all the time, too.

- At that time we had huge boilers and they pumped a huge amount of steam from one building to another.

And all of it came through pipes that were in these tunnels and so the tunnels were always hot.

And so if you were a little kid and it was cold outside and you were on your way home, you could take a shortcut through the capitol, get warmed up walking through the tunnels from one building to the next and get closer to home and come back out all warmed up again.

I remember when I was in the high school during track on the colder days of the year, it was okay for us if we didn't make a big deal out of it to go down and to run some of our exercise programs in the tunnels from one location to another and nobody ever bothered us.

We used to play football down by the lake, it was always fun.

You'd play hide-and-go-seek in and around the area.

When you got to be a teenager it was a place where you could hang out because it was close to where the ball diamond was, it was close to where the football field was.

So for us, it was a common place to just come because it was gorgeous, lots of green grass, lots of open spaces.

Some of my first recollections of the State Capitol were from the outside looking in at literally a place where they were putting on a new dome because the first copper dome was shot.

And so in the mid-1960s, they were redoing the dome and everybody knew about it and so they were taking off parts of the dome and everybody could have a little, it was almost like a little key chain made out of part of the old dome.

It was a beautiful, bright orange, and everybody kept saying, "Well enjoy it while you can because the color's gonna change."

And now it looks like it does today with beautiful traditional copper that, you know, after age takes over and after it oxidizes, it becomes a darker, deeper brown.

- [Moisan] I think when the architects built the building, they had forgotten about hailstorms in South Dakota.

And so over a period of years, you know, you try and keep things as they are and natural and sometimes things are just not practical.

And the sunlight coming into the roofs, you know, sun shining through roofs with wired glass, and it's simply wasn't practical in our weather conditions here.

Keeping in mind that this still is a state office building.

Lots and lots of things happen here, so there's a fine line between restoration and a state office building and we have to try and walk that line all the time and make sure that people understand that it's an office building, but on the same hand, it's a historic building.

- [Narrator] A concrete shell was placed over the original structural steel.

The new copper covering conformed to the original dome.

Lights with timers were eventually placed above the stained glass to emulate natural sunlight.

- Everybody had been able to go up the steps to the winding stairway to go to the dome and we had to shut that off during session one year.

I had a wonderful lady working for me.

She gave guides during session, with all the buses, students coming to town, and one time comin' down the staircase, one young man froze and she had a heck of a time getting him loose to come down.

But that ended the tours in the dome.

- When I first went there, there was a restaurant in the capitol and it was out of the ground floor, not where it is now, it's below ground now.

It was on the ground floor and the kitchen, it was in the newsroom, which is where the reporters are.

And there was a counter that went down and that counter went into that room and then the kitchen was behind it there.

So when I first went through that was the restaurant.

It was down there on the first floor and it extended out into the rotunda.

Well, it was different in many ways.

In the first place, it was dirty.

- House members and Senate members could smoke.

- Committee rooms were gray or blue, I guess you should say.

- It wasn't as formal as it is now.

- You know all of that artwork was covered up and the windows were dark.

- [Pat] There were spittoons at each of the desks.

- He always kept a spittoon next to his desk, a brass platoon, and he was always known, and I think he came out in some of the national newspapers one year during session, as The Spittin' Senator.

When he finally retired from the Senate, he brought all his platoons back and my brother got one, I got one, Mother had one.

She put flowers in hers and Dad always said that was a desecration.

- There's a little office next to the Majority Leader's Office in the back of the Senate and you probably know where that office is, it's not a very big office.

And in fact what they did is they put a partition in there and they have two small offices in there and they're like eight by eight or something like that, they're not very big.

But that room without the partition in it, was where the Senate State Affairs met.

So I've testified more than once just hanging onto that doorsill, if you will, with my head in.

(laughs) - If you were in a committee room and you weren't a member of the committee, they kicked you out when they voted.

And then they'd come out and I'd stand out there and they'd say, "Oh, how'd I do?"

"Well, you're not too good."

And so they come out and they'd say, every guy'd say, "Did you vote with me?"

"Oh yeah, yeah, we sure did.

Sorry you lost," you know.

That's the way it was.

- A bill did not have to be heard.

A bill did not have to be posted.

A committee didn't have to meet.

- The only way you could find out, you had to follow the committee chairman around and maybe he'd tell ya when it was gonna be and maybe he wouldn't dependin' on how he felt about the bill.

And the other thing they used to do and it really had gotten like some guys in trouble, they used to take bills and put 'em in their pocket.

They called it a pocket veto.

You never hear it.

- It sounds very unfair, it worked pretty good in a sense.

Most bills got a hearing.

- I was the worst lieutenant governor they ever had, that's why they changed it I think.

I had my own program, you know, he was for the income tax and I was against it.

You know, I was for some things down here, some labor union things that he wasn't for.

But personally we got along okay, you know.

Well, most people, the only thing they remember about me as bein' lieutenant governor was the vote on the income tax.

It passed the House narrowly, it was a Democratic bill, too, I mean, a Democratic bill, Kneip's bill.

It came up at night about 11 o'clock at night and Haugaard wasn't there and the vote came up 17, 17.

I'll never forget it.

And they had, "How do you vote?"

And I said, "I declare the bill lost."

See because if you don't have 18 votes, it loses, you don't have to vote.

But they wanted me to vote so they'd get me on record 'cause they knew I was running for governor, see?

So they recall the vote and they did it over again and I had to vote.

I mean, finally they just beat me into voting no and I walked out of there, I remember, and I was upset, mad.

And Kneip and Ted Muenster were standing there and they said something to me and I just turned around and I don't want to tell you what I said to them.

I was really mad.

- Lobbying hasn't changed in its essence, you know?

Essentially what a lobbyist does is he runs a little department of education.

The first thing he does is educates himself about his clients and their problems, their assets, their liabilities, what they need and what they don't need, you know?

And then he has to kind of try to educate the legislature.

Well, that process, although the legislative process may change, that process of telling your client's story really never changes.

You still have to get it right and you have to be honest, you know?

And if you do that, I don't know why you should ever not be able to succeed at lobbying, you know?

(soft music) - [Narrator] The capitol has seen its share of legislative sessions, the dirty '30s and dirty politics.

Unfortunately, real dirt was covering the beauty of the building and our State Capitol was beginning to show its wear and tear.

- Well, when I first walked into the building, I thought it looked pretty pathetic, you know, and that was, you know, back in the '70s and it had not received a lot of attention.

As the building got older, by the latter part of the '50s, it was showing his age.

Okay, now part of that is simply a lack of money, you know?

Part of it's hard use, part of it is, you know, went through the Depression, you know, several wars, et cetera.

The building was not a priority.

So when the United States Bicentennial came along, you know every state had a commission.

every city had commissions or groups that took on special projects, but it brought a whole new awareness to our historical symbols, you know, that represented government.

And so people started looking at this building and saying, "Here's a great project for us."

- Senator Grams from Sturgis and Senator Lamont from Aberdeen, those were the two folks who were the driving force in the beginnings of the restoration of the State Capitol in about 1976 and 1977.

- It'd be kind of odd that someone from Pierre with a three-piece suit would come in and my dad would be gruffy with old sawdust-covered greasy clothes and hadn't shaved for a couple of days and they would talk politics in the old office.

And one of the things I recall him talking about was that we needed to do something with the capitol because it was just an energy waster.

- It became apparent, look, you know, we need to paint the building, we need to take care of this because it's a valuable structure for the state of South Dakota and the history of the state.

- And they had so many air conditioners in the windows in the summer and it was just costin' a ton of money to heat.

And I remember my dad talking to, I remember he started talking with Kneip about that.

- All of the decorations on all of the walls and all the ceilings, probably 95% of those had been painted over with at least seven coats of paint.

It led to a systematic longterm covering up of a piece of history in South Dakota and Senator Grams and Senator Lamont stopped that from happening basically and said, "Look, you know, we've got a cherished, very cherished building here in South Dakota.

It's historic.

A lot of important things have happened in this building and it's time that we stop doin' what we're doin' and begin a process to restore it to the way it was in 1910."

- [Narrator] The first project, repairing the stained glass in the rotunda, 100 feet from the capitol floor.

- I got to the capitol building, there was of course this scaffolding which was set up and it went all the way to the top and on the floor was nothing but marble.

We were not strapped in.

There was very little that constrained us.

- My dad, even with his badly broken legs from years previous, climbed that scaffolding to look at their work.

- [Patrick] And the first time I got there, it took me 20 or 25 minutes to get up where I needed to work.

- [Robert] My dad probably didn't realize just how big a job it was, but I think he knew it had to be done.

- It was in very bad shape.

That's it.

You know, for me, that was an interesting story.

Almost all of the stained glass either had windows or skylights above it to light it, you know, because when it's lit, it's beautiful.

But when it was dark and cracked and with holes in it, it wasn't so beautiful You know, they took it out, they repaired it, they put it back in.

We put lights above it because no one still wanted to restore the skylights and so all of the stained glass is lit from above.

- Surprisingly enough, even though nobody had been up to that domed area, since it was built, it was a lot of damage to the architectural cornices and the like.

And so there would be a piece that would be broken off or a piece that would be damaged and I would take modeling clay and model it with a knife and a blade and everything else and then my fingers so that it looked exactly like the one on either side.

- [Narrator] Restoring the Supreme Court Room and the Governor's Reception Room were the next two projects to follow.

It was during this time that history would once again be made in the Capitol.

(tense music) - People looked at this and they said, "This is a really bad thing to have in the Governor's Reception Room.

It just sends all the wrong messages," okay?

So Governor Kneip, being a very clever and intelligent and sensitive man, decided that he would commission Paul War Cloud a grant to do a painting that would fit over it that had a modern message.

Okay and so he did everything that Blashfield had not done and that is that he painted this big white, glowing painting.

Okay, so instead of dark, you've got glowing and basically it's all about the Native American progress.

So in his way, it's a cliche as well, but that didn't solve the controversy for long, okay?

It was not of the merit, artistically, that the Blashfield was.

So somewhere along the line, after Kneip, that painting came down and was sent over to the state library.

The original painting was exposed again, it was restored.

And again, after a while, controversy started bubbling up during the Janklow administration.

So the decision was made, we couldn't move it, you know, the Capitol Beautification Commission wouldn't go along with that.

We couldn't put another painting over it, so we had the restorers come back and protect the painting.

And then wallboard was put over that and the same finish as the rest of the walls on that.

So underneath that wall, easily retrievable for when we're able to cope with this historic artifact.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Improvements were also made on Capitol Lake.

- [Moisan] In the '70s, Capitol Lake was dredged and we have a high goose population here and a lot of runoff that comes down the gulch and all that material was dredged out of Capitol Lake and was put in a holding pond up at the end of the Hilger's Gulch.

Over the construction of the capitol and the restoration of the capitol and the parking lot, a lot of the rubble, the concrete rubble and asphalt and stuff were also dumped up in Hilger's Gulch.

So the governor at one point decided instead of dumping area and a weedy mess, let's turn it into something that the public can use.

And so with the help of DOT and private contractors, we started a process of remodeling Hilger's Gulch and it was developed into a park that could enhance the city of Pierre and the capitol complex.

Adjacent to that is Governor's Grove.

Each governor that has been the governor of South Dakota has planted a tree on Arbor day.

By each of those trees that the governors have planted are the marker for each governor that has planted that tree.

- [Narrator] Work on the inside of the capitol began to slow and it wasn't until the mid to late '80s that the work picked back up.

During this time, under Governor Janklow, the Capitol Complex Restoration and Beautification Commission was created.

This five member commission's mission was to protect and preserve the integrity of the historic areas of the State Capitol building and grounds.

(upbeat music) - [Day] The people who were appointed are people who have number one, expertise to share, architects, builders, artists, historians, et cetera, people who have a vested interest the building.

- It's beautiful.

The legislature came to town and they were amazed.

Senator Grams and Lamont were just amazed at what had happened on the second floor of the building.

And this is sort of lettin' the cat out of the bag, but I guess I can do that 'cause I can retire if I need to, they said, "Well, when are you going to restore the House and the Senate and our floors?"

And I said, "I'm sorry, Senator, we just don't have the money in our budget to be able to do that."

And the Senator said, "Well, we'll fix that for ya."

(laughs) - The golden age of this whole restoration was, you know, 1980 to '90, and that's when major renovations were done.

I mean, the building was repainted and brought back to its original colors.

We had all kinds of people in there doing paint scrapings, you know, down through four or five different layers, say it was originally this color.

And if we didn't like it that color, we'd say, "What was the next one up?"

(laughs) - We started looking at the old pictures and sayin', "Okay, scrape over here because we know there's something there."

And they'd scrape and pretty soon there was something there.

And it was an investigative process that was amazing.

It was a lot of fun and it was like you couldn't get wait to get to work the next day to find out what they were going to find next.

It was like a treasure chest of beautiful things on the wall that had been destroyed over 75, 80 years.

- [Day] Yeah, so this whole building was probably stenciled at one time, knowing the historic period, knowing the American Renaissance, this was all stenciled.

They hired some artists and they used good common sense.

Some of those stencils, you know, when they're just lines or things, weren't painted, but, you know, put on with other devices, like markers, et cetera.

But they look, you know, they really add to the whole embellished the decor of the building.

They needed to come back.

A lot of the things that were original to the Capitol were removed.

We've had replicas made so that, you know, it was a combination of what existed, what could be found and what could be replicated.

- Most of the chandeliers that had been there originally had been removed.

The rumor is that most of them were during, probably the Second World War, but it could have been the First, were taken and melted down and used for shell casings.

(lively music) - [Narrator] Over the years, the massive columns found throughout the Capitol were displaying cracks.

Repairing the columns was a challenge because these were not marble columns, but rather Scagliola columns, which had become a lost art.

- [Bob] The Scagliola is a plaster product that most people can't tell the difference from real marble.

Scagliola costs $100 a column in those days and marble would have cost $1,000.

It probably would have lasted forever, except the Capitol started settling.

- [Narrator] The mosaic floors were also in need of repair.

As the legend goes, the floors were laid by 66 Italian workers, each leaving a signature blue tile.

Only 55 tiles are visible to the public.

- Of course it always surprised me who, some of the legislators that supported the renovation because some of them are so damn snug they don't like to spend any money.

But they spend quite a lot of money fixing this building, putting it back the way it was.

- There was no one more conservative and more of a watchdog when it come to state money than my father.

He must have felt capital restoration was pretty important because that took a pretty high priority.

- [Day] Now when I walk in, I feel how pristine and well-cared for this building is, how very South Dakota it is.

Whatever import, you know, the legislature and initial building committees had, the budget they had, et cetera, the style of the time, but really it's the patina of the years of functioning, of the state living in that building, it takes on the personality of the state.

- I can't think of anything that we ultimately decided to do that didn't get done.

It just took 15 to 20 years to spend $4 million.

- [Narrator] Restoration efforts wrapped up in 1989, just in time to celebrate 100 years of statehood.

The South Dakota Capitol was once again the shining beacon it was intended to be.

However, sadness would soon envelop the state and our capitol would turn from the center of celebration to a place of mourning.

- Well, I was home and a good friend had stopped by for coffee and we had just finished coffee and it was 20 minutes to five and I received a call from Frank Brost, who was my brother's chief of staff.

I knew that there was something bad and so I prevailed upon him to tell me what was wrong and he said, "There's been an accident."

- I think it was Doug Lund came on and reported that the governor's airplane was missing at the time.

And it was, I remember it was a very cloudy, rainy day in Sioux falls and the news kept getting worse and worse and worse.

And by 6:30 or so, they had reported that the governor and all the passengers had been killed.

Interestingly enough, governments aren't really prepared for things like that.

Everybody stepped up to the plate and it was a very, very sad day for South Dakota.

(somber music) - After the funeral, there was a bus that went to Brookings where the service was in Brookings and I road that with my husband and my kids, well some of my children, and my mother.

And the people that were standing out in the fields on their tractors with flags in their hands, standing along the side of the road, just, it made you feel good.

- [Narrator] As a Memorial to the eight men who died, Ruth Ziolkowski and her family commissioned a large-scale bronze replica of a 1935 mahogany sculpture titled "Fighting Stallions," that her husband, Korczak, had created.

Governor Mickelson had long admired Korczak's artwork.

This larger-than-life bronze sits just off the East Capitol.

- We were at a meeting one day and Governor Janklow said, "Do you know that World War II veterans are dying at a rate of two or 3,000 a day and South Dakota doesn't have a Memorial to World War II veterans?"

And the idea of statutes came up and having a celebration.

The interest by the public, in that particular memorial was huge.

World War II veterans said, "You know what, I'm honored.

I'm an old guy and I'm honored and I'm honored to be a veteran."

- [Narrator] In the coming years, the Capitol would host two more memorial celebrations.

In 2004, the Korean War Memorial was dedicated.

In 2006, the capital city would once again celebrate with the dedication of the Vietnam Memorial.

- What a special event for people in South Dakota.

Over 1,900 volunteers came together on the Capitol Complex to honor Vietnam War veterans.

The place was filled.

We had way over 30,000 people here.

You need a place like this where you can celebrate those types of events and giving us the opportunity to say thank you to a group of people that had never been thanked for what they had done.

(majestic music) I hope they feel welcome.

I want it to be an inviting, not an imposing location.

Whether you come in from the front steps and you climb the beautiful steps to the front, or if you walk in from the parking lots all the way around it, we hope when you walk in, you're impressed.

You're impressed with the cleanliness.

You're impressed with the detail that's been restored to the Capitol itself.

And something else, and that is the openness of the facility.

You know there's no place where you got to go through a metal detector.

There's no place where you've gotta go through a screening process to get in and out.

This is truly the seat of government.

It belongs to the people of South Dakota.

- And even now, you walk in, it has got a pre-9-11 innocence that says this is the people's palace, because you can walk around, you can walk through the legislative spaces, you can hold your seven-year-old's hand and say, "This is where laws are made."

- [Narrator] For 100 years our State Capitol has stood strong.

Those responsible for its care today are taking the steps to keep it strong, historic and efficient for future generations.

- We're upgrading the heating system itself, the boiler systems and so forth, will be replaced.

Second of all, we've gone through, most of the lights in the capital are being replaced with more energy-efficient lights, including the new fluorescent bulbs.

On a daily basis or on a regular basis, we have a planned program of replacing windows that simply aren't energy efficient.

We replace them with new windows that are energy efficient.

- Well it must be preserved forever.

- I think we are all very happy that we have the Capitol.

It made Pierre.

Pierre wouldn't be much if we didn't have the Capitol.

No, I think Pierre's pretty proud of it and support it.

I don't think there's any, they're ever gonna move it.

(laughs) - There's always been some group of people, or sometimes just a handful or even an individual, who's always kept an eye on the historical integrity of the building.

I mean, first of all, the building's an incredibly beautiful piece of architecture.

- My Dad, I think, felt that his charge was to bring that capital back to the grandeur that it had when it was built and I think he succeeded.

And I think he's smiling at us right now.

- [Michael] It doesn't feel like a history museum to me, even though it is very historical.

It feels like a well-maintained piece of history that is functioning very efficiently for us today and will continue to do.

(vibrant percussion music) - [Announcer] Major funding for the production of "Our State House, A Capitol Idea," was provided by Bank West, the Mary Chilton DAR Foundation, the MDU Resources Foundation, the South Dakota Association of Realtors and by your membership in the Friends of South Dakota Public Broadcasting.