The St. Peter/St. Paul story is here but I don’t vouch for the accuracy. St. Paul was the territorial capital, and a powerful business group wanted the capital moved to St. Peter. The business-dominated legislature passed a bill moving the capital but an eager legislator stole the bill so the governor couldn’t sign it.
And we think a few ballots are a big thing :rolleyes:
Born and learned in Illinois, and I never heard the Lincoln story. Lincoln never held state office as far as I know. He was a lawyer, and served a term in the US House. If I’m not mistaken (and I’m doing this from memory late in the Thanksgiving weekend, so forgive me if I err), the Springfield move took place before he came on the local political scene.
Rhode Island had a rotating capital for many years until about 1900. The legislature met in about five diffent cities depending on the year. Newport and Providence were two of them, but I don’t know the rest.
N.H. has had at least 3 capitals (Portsmouth before the Revolution, Exeter for about 30 years, and then Concord).
Maine has had two capitals: Portland (1820-1830) and Augusta (1830-present).
Before Albany was made the capital of N.Y. in 1797, New York City was the capital.
New Haven and Hartford were the joint capitals of Connecticut from colonial times until 1875.
Pennsylvania’s capital was Philadelphia until 1799, and Harrisburg after 1812. Lancaster was the capital at least part of the time between.
Springfield was made the capital of Ill. in 1837, when Lincoln had been in the Illinois House of Representatives about three years.
The general trend of states that change their capitals seems to be to move it from a place with high population density and good transportation (especially easy sea access) to a more central location, probably in an effort to encourage new settlement in a relatively undeveloped area.
Florida became a state in 1845, but the capital rotated between Jacksonville and Pensacola (south florida was considered unusable refuse). The road between was dangerous though, and remains dangerous to this day, though only small fragments remain. Tallahassee was established right in the middle between them, and was thus a very artificial city.
Today, it continues to have no real industrial base. Most who live here either work for the government, or in consumer services/sales. With three colleges, it does have quite a student base (Florida State, Florida A & M, and Tallahassee Community College).
I’ll now slap myself so I’ll stop rambling.
…the capital of the State of California migrated a lot. It was, at various times, located in San Francisco and Stockton before it was finally nailed down to Sacramento. I also seem to recall some sort of shenanegans going on regarding illicit attempts to hijack the capitol from one place to another, but a non-trivial percentage of a century has passed since it came up in conversation, so I forget.
'twas Monterey under Spanish/Mexican rule, and I believe the U.S. kept it there at first. When statehood came, SF was the logical choice but it was the outset of the gold rush and the vast majority of the populace lived in the sierran foothills. The biggest cities were coastal, and were all populated primarily by former subjects of Mexico (I believe Paul Rodriguez said “…we didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us!”).
The capital of Texas (Republic of) started at Washington on the Brazos. Nothing there now except a park. Sam Houston was fond of his namesake and Houston was capital twice, during his two tenures as President, before permanently settling in Austin.
Under statehood, California’s first capital was San Jose. Then it moved to Vallejo and then Benicia (or vice versa), before finally settling on Sacramento. The first three cities didn’t last very long as capitals.
Vallejo, Benicia, and Sacramento all had relatively good rail connections and Sacramento ultimately had the best.
New Mexico has had Santa Fe as its capital for nearly all of its European inhabitance. Santa Fe was a capital city early in the 17th century.
The first capital of Virginia was, of course, Jamestown, founded in 1607; the Virginia government was chartered there in 1619.
The colonial Virginia government moved to nearby Williamsburg in 1699 (after which Jamestown became depopulated and abandoned; now it’s the main archeological site in Virginia–the last time Jamestown figured in U.S. history was during the Civil War, when the Union army took it in 1863 and fortified it as an outpost for Williamsburg, the furthest part of the Virginia Peninsula occupied by Union forces). It was at Williamsburg that Patrick Henry made his famous speech “Give me liberty or give me death!”
The town of Richmond was founded in 1733. In the middle of the Revolutionary War, the revolutionary government of Virginia under Governor Thomas Jefferson moved upriver to Richmond in 1779-1780 (to be more accessible to the delegates from western Virginia, and to get further away from British attack from the James River estuary) and there it remains to this day. Richmond was also the capital of the Confederacy from 1861 to 1865. On April 3, 1865, Richmond was abandoned and burned by the Rebs, and Union forces entered it the next day.
there were even more capitals than Kingston, NYC and Albany. I quote:
“…The capital was variously located at Kingston, White Plains, Poughkeepsie, and New York City before Albany was selected as the permanent site in 1797…”
Oklahoma probably has the most unusual capital city history. The territorial capital was Guthrie and remained so after statehood in 1907. Oklahoma City had since become the largest city in the state and there was a great debate in the legislature about moving the capital there. Finally, on June 10th, 1910, the state seal was moved (many say illegally) under cover of darkness to OKC. Later, a statewide election was held to determine the permanent location for the state capital. Oklahoma City was confirmed in this election and remains the capital to this day.
Washington was taken into the Union in 1889 and Olympia has always been its capital. The bulk of the state’s population until that time had moved in waves throughout the Puget Sound area as the first clear-cutting of timber took place. About 50,000 people or half of the state’s population lived around Olympia at the time, so it became the capital.
Only later did Seattle boom. In 1893 the Great Northern Railroad was completed across the Cascade Mountains. The Klondike Gold Rush in the late 1890s really caused the population of the state’s biggest city to boom. But the capital’s still at the south end of the Puget Sound.
Tennessee has had it’s capitol in 4 different cities, Knoxville, Kingston, Murfreesboro, and Nashville. I assume it started out in Knoxville, as that was the larger city, then moved further towards the state center, and a little beyond.(Murfreesboro containing the geographical center of the state) Of course, this all came after they decided not to have the state of Franklin, but the state of Tennessee.
Georgia, where I live now, has had multiple capitol cities as well. Savannah, Heard’s Fort(Wiles County), Louisville, Milledgeville, and Macon all spent time as the capitol city before Atlanta(formerly known as Terminus, and Marthasville) became the capitol city in 1868. The change was not considered permanent until a constitutional convention in 1877 gave the vote over the capitol to the citizens of the state. Though the move to Atlanta was first proposed in 1847, the city was not the capitol when the city was burned during Sherman’s march to the sea.
(yeah, I’m a font of sometimes useless information)
The final move from Murfreesboro to **Nashville **came about due to technological advances-- i.e. the steamboat.
Steam power made rivers a easily used natural transport system for goods, people, & information. The Cumberland River, with Nashville built on it’s banks, is deep enough to be navigable. The Stones River, near Murfreesboro, is not.
So, for convenience in government operations, Tennessee moved it’s capitol to Nashville.
As for your being a font of useless information, so what? If that were a crime, they’d hang everybody on this board!
Raleigh was founded to be the state capital of NC in 1792. The first capital was in New Bern where the colonial governors lived. The site of Raleigh was picked was because it was near a famous tavern. I guess the pols back then liked to drink too.
Tha Capitol was moved from Detroit to Lansing in 1847. I assume because Lansing is one of the most centrally located cities in the lower pennisula.
Other Michigan trivia.
-In 1835 was Toledo War over Michigan-Ohio boundary. Michigan was not admitted to the Union because she would not surrender claim to the Toledo strip. Area was finally surrendered in exchange for the western section of the Upper Peninsula
-Michigan’s shores touch four of the five Great Lakes, and Michigan has more than 11,000 inland lakes. In Michigan, you are never more than 6 miles from an inland lake or more than 85 miles from a Great Lake.
-Michigan covers 58,110 square miles of land, 38,575 square miles of Great Lakes waters and 1,305 square miles of inland waters
