State Capitals: Why are they mostly small cities?

Factual Questions
1

On another message board it was noted that the capitals of many states - in fact, probably MOST states - are small, otherwise insignificant cities, while the state’s major cities were inexplicably passed over for the honor. Obvious candidates include:

  • Harrisburg is the capital of Pennsylvania instead of Philadelphia or Pittsburgh
  • Albany is the capital of New York instead of New York City
  • Tallahassee is the capital of Florida instead of Miami
  • Sacramento is the capital of California instead of LA or San Francisco
  • Helena is the capital of Washington instead of Seattle
  • Lansing is the capital of Michigan instead of Detroit
  • Springfield is the capital of Illinois instead of Chicago
  • Austin is the capital of Texas instead of Houston or Dallas

Why is this? I can understand one or two or even ten, but is there some overall reason so many podunk cities got to be state capitals? Or is it just a remarkable coincidence, and every story is wildly different? In same cases you can see why a major city isn’t the capital, because it just became a big hub since the capital was picked - but it’s kind of hard to explain Harrisburg and Albany, isn’t it?

2

By the way, despite the above post, I do know that the capital of Washington is Olympia. Helena is the capital of Montana.

3

I think in most cases, the emphasis is having a capitol in a central location rather than the city size. Harrisburg, Albany, Sacramento, Lansing, Springfield, and Austin are all near the geographic center of their respective states.

4

In many cases the capital was the dominant city when seleted.

5

I can’t speak for any other states and this is my guess for Albany being the captiol of NY. BTW, Kingston was the first capitol of NY.

Albany is more or less centrally located throughout the state. Since the State Legislators (Asssembymembers and State Senators) and the Governor must meet throughout the year to work on the budget, state laws, etc. it makes more sense to have the capitol centalized.

I would hate to be in Plattsburgh, NY and have to travel excess of 5 hours (each way) to go all the way to NYC for a one day session.

Since this is just a guess, I bet someone will respond with the real answer.

6

A lot of capital sites were selected to be near the geographic center (or the geographic center of the population). If they had no other things going for them (waterways, previously defined highways, access to raw materials, etc.) then they grew only to the extent that the government grew.

Columbus, OH and Indianapolis, IN might have shared in the fate of Springfield, except that the National Road went right through them. (Or, turned around, Springfield, IL might have gotten as large as Columbus and Indy, except that the huge magnets of Chicago and St. Louis pulled traffic away from it. Indianapolis got “saved” because Chicago kept Gary from getting any significant lake traffic and Cincinnati kept any other larger cities developing on the Ohio River. Columbus was never as large as Cleveland (Lake Erie) or Cincinnati (Ohio river) until the great government boom beginning in the 1960s plus the high-tech explosion that was supported by the presence of Ohio State Unversity (tied to an aggressive plan of acquisition of every neighboring town by the Columbus mayor).

Tallahasse is not obviously a population center, but I suspect that when Florida was selecting a capital, no one was going to hike into the swamps of Orlando. I’m pretty sure that Florida was initially settled from western Georgia and Alabama. I would guess that Olympia benefitted from the same condition, with Olympia being near the geographic center of the region west of the the Cascades (the rest being initially dismissed as desert).

7

Also, the large cities are usually located in a place that allowed them to become major areas of trade and/or business. NYC, Philly, Houston, Chicago and Miami are all port cities, while Dallas and Chicago were important railheads at one time.

8

Let’s not forget political horse trading. Putting the state capital in a cnetrally located but otherwise non-competitive area would satisfy a lot of competing interests. In Missouri, Jefferson City was the capital and on the railroad line, but Columbia got the University and the plank road, etc.

Also, when the states were formed, particularly states outside of the original 13, they usually didn’t have population centers. Who would have known that Detroit would have wound up bigger than Lansing, or Chicago over Springfield.

9

A related thread may be of interest: State Capital Orgins

10

Isn’t there a definite interest in keeping the politics our of the cities that move lots of money? A good reason why the Nation’s capital is not NYC, as Dave Barry put it: The Federal Government is Wall Street’s biggest competitor in the “worthless pieces of paper” business.

11

Apart from the central geographical location (Cheyenne, Wyoming, anyone? Juneau, Alaska?), there’s the political dynamic that rival cities can’t allow the political capital to be awarded to their rivals. So they compromise by agreeing on a little no’count place. I submit Jefferson City, a real nowhere place midway between St. Louis and Kansas City, as Exhibit A.

(This does not explain Denver, Colorado or Honolulu, Hawaii.
Columbus is now the biggest city in Ohio, having overtaken Cleveland.)

I’m told that this is the same dynamic that produced the Kingdom of France in the early Middle Ages. There were several big dukes and potentates of realms like Aquitaine, Burgundy, Languedoc, etc. Each one was reluctant to yield suzerainty to another one of his rival dukes. But the guy who ruled Île-de-France (essentially nothing more than the city of Paris) had the dinkiest, least significant little territory of all. So the others made him king, figuring he’d never give them any trouble. Eventually the king of Paris became the biggest potentate by far.

12

Sometimes, cities are created specifically to be the capital. Austin was created in 1839 to be the capital city of the Republic of Texas, similar to how Washington, DC came about. For that matter, why isn’t New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles the capital of the US?

Then you have to take into account that a state’s largest cities today can be quite different than its largest cities 150 years ago. Houston didn’t become the largest city in Texas until early in the 20th century. Prior to that, the largest cities in Texas were Galveston and San Antonio.

Also, today’s largest cities may not have even existed when the capital was selected. For example, Dallas wasn’t settled until the mid-1840s, well after the capital was already established in Austin.

13

Somebody has to point it out – sometimes the capital is the biggest/most important city in the state –

Salt Lake City, Utah
Boston, MA
Providence, RI

14

Well, I won’t make an absolute claim for every capital-vs-trade center, but Lansing was deliberately built in the back woods. I doubt many people would have expected it to get as large as it has–and without the railroad and the automobile it never would have. You can’t transport much of anything down the Red Cedar river whereas Detroit is centrally located on the Great Lakes. (Luck made Detroit bigger than Cleveland, but luck had nothing to do with Detroit’s ascendancy over Lansing.) Similarly, Chicago had Lake Michigan and reasonably close access to the Illinois River from the get-go. You can’t ship anything on Spring Creek, and the original town of Springfield wasn’t even built on the banks of the creek to begin with.

15

NYC was the Nation’s Capital for a time but was too far north for the southern colonies to access easily. Thus, the District of Columbia was created near the center of all 13 colonies with access to the Atlantic.

16

I’m reading Elkins and McKittrick’s “Age of Federalism” and they go into great detail on the theory of where capitals should be built.

Most attempts to build a new city and make it a capital and the center of the country have failed, according to the authors. St. Petersburg succeeded to an extent (until the Russian Revolution) because Peter the Great was powerful enough that he could force everyone to live there.

Versailles was an attempt to become a new capital city, but it never caught on.

Elkins and McKittrick assert that Washington and Jefferson, who pushed for a Southern capital, both were inspired by the move of Virginia’s capital from Williamsburg to Richmond. Jefferson thought that Richmond would become the new seat of culture in Virginia. Instead, it just sort of turned into Richmond, Virginia, which is a nice city, but nothing special.

Other states got the same idea and starting moving their capitals and in very few instances did the new capital city ever grow in stature to become the most influential city in the state.

Massachusetts decided to keep its capital in Boston and Boston ended up becoming one of the most influential cities in education and the arts in the U.S., especially in the 19th Century.

Washington has never become much more than a city of government, places like the Kennedy Center notwithstanding.

Elkins and McKittrick argued that the U.S. would have developed a much different national culture if the capital of the new nation had remained in New York, which was well on its way to becoming the most important city in the country already in 1790, although Philadelphia would be larger for a few more decades.

The authors also asserted that the Founding Fathers had a fear of turning any U.S. city into a New World version of London and thought that they could build a distinctly “American” city that would embody all of the new country’s aspiration.

Instead they got Washington, D.C. (Again a fine city, but it’s got some flaws.)

17

Lincoln, Nebraska got it over Omaha because of its location. People south of the Platte River wanted their capital there, so they snuck out of the territorial capital of Omaha. Lincoln was built to be the capital city, although a small town called Lancaster was already there. They changed the name after somebody.

Honolulu was the seat of the Hawaiian royal govt. So, it was logical to keep it as the state capital.

Now, how did virtually inaccessible Juneau get to be the capital of Alaska?

18

Just to clear up a minor little pet peeve: The only reason that Columbus is bigger than Cleveland (or even Cincinatti) is that Columbus engulfed an entire county. If Cleveland got to count its suburbs, too, Columbus would be left in the dust.

19

Juneau WAS in roughly the center of population when it was made the capital. It was also the center of the panhandle Gold Rush, and therefore a major transportation hub (by Alaskan standards). Not sure, but perhaps Sitka was thought to have too much baggage from being the Russian-territory capital.

Cheyenne was also mentioned in the same breath. It was built when the transcontinental railroad went through, and was chosen by the Union Pacific RR as a rail hub. Even though it’s down in the corner of Wyoming, it was still a very practical choice.

Every other example has a similar story - it was either the state’s (or territory’s) major city at the time it was chosen, or was expected to be, or perhaps should have been, or was selected as a political compromise if there were more than 1 major city to choose from, or perhaps between the 1 major city and a large, politically-active countryside.

RickJay, I’m sure you’re familiar with how Ottawa got to be chosen as Canada’s capital. The same political pattern occurred with many US state capitals.

20

Chronos, I would tend to agree, (note I mentioned the aggressive mayor), but even gobbling up the whole county, Columbus needed people to live in the county for that land grab to make a difference. Otherwise, it would simply have been the largest incorporated dairy farm in the world (as ancient UofM football songs describe it). Columbus is artificially large, but it would have been much smaller had not the legislature and OSU brought in a lot of insurance and high-tech business. It would have been smaller still if the National Road (followed by US-40, followed by I-70) had not passed through it.