STATEHOUSE SURPRISE: Workers made an interesting discovery while renovating Wyoming's Capitol.

• Author: Warnock, Kae
• Position: CAPITOLS

Sometimes buildings surprise us.

That was the case when Wyoming undertook a restoration of its Capitol in 2015. The original building was completed in two campaigns, in 1888 and 1890, and expanded in 1917.

Which era was the correct one to restore? The year 1917 was chosen as the "period of significance," as preservationists describe it, because that expansion replaced the original Senate and House chambers in the 1890 portion of the building, and much of the historic fabric was thought to be lost. The only known paint finishes dated from the art deco period.

But the building had its own mysteries to reveal.

During preconstruction in 2015, the Capitol Rehabilitation and Restoration Oversight Group, which included the governor and members of the Legislature, hired MOCA Systems, a project management firm that has supervised restoration projects at state capitols across the country. The team examined the history of the building, including the 1888 and 1890 plans for the oldest portion of the structure. Those plans indicated that the Territorial House chamber was built in the center of the north side of the building. But where was it now?

The historic architectural plans helped uncover the building's forgotten past. The two-story room still existed but had been divided horizontally by the addition of a floor (and ceiling below) in the 1970s. While the new floor provided more office space, a small library and a committee room, it also badly damaged a chamber that holds great historical significance for Wyoming.

Besides being home to the Territorial House, the chamber was where the representatives and the Territorial Council (later the state Senate) met jointly as the Territorial Assembly. In September 1889, the state Constitutional Convention convened in the chamber to draft and adopt a charter that reaffirmed women's suffrage rights, which had been included in Wyoming's territorial laws since 1869. In fact, the Capitol's national historic landmark status stems from the convention and the significant suffrage debates held in the chamber.

Even in 1889, the convention was recognized as historic. As the Cheyenne Weekly Sun put it that year: "Forty centuries of history personified, will also gaze upon and applaud the noble act by which Wyoming places herself in the forefront of all commonwealths in the world--by being the first to give equal rights and exact justice to woman in granting her the suffrage with all that implies in civil, religious and...