Michigan State Capitol Building (Lansing - 1885-1890)
Status: Building still exists, artwork has been conserved and restored.
Michigan citizens journeyed to Lansing from across the state on January 1, 1879, to attend the dedication of the new state Capitol. Constructed 1872-1878 for a modest $1.5 million, the building was widely hailed an architectural success. Yet anyone who stepped inside instantly saw that the building wasn’t truly finished. Perhaps a writer for the Detroit Post and Tribune said it best when he wrote “The large expanse of white or light colored walls is somewhat tiresome to the eye, but this can be remedied when the liberality of the Legislature reaches the point of ordering paintings or frescoes to fill the largest vacant spaces.”
After six years of political delays and insisting that the plaster needed more time to cure, the Legislature passed, and Gov. Alger signed, the first in a series of bills to fund the Capitol’s interior artwork. In the years that followed numerous contracts were let to the William Wright Company for the Capitol’s decoration. In total, the project spanned almost six years and cost roughly $55,000. [Learn more about the decoration of the Capitol.]
This actually wasn’t the first time that the Wright Company did work for the State of Michigan. In 1867 the State Board of Auditors purchased a gilt frame for a portrait of Lafayette, acquired by the State around 1840. It is possible that this was one of the 13 frames that the company later bronzed while working in the Capitol in the 1880s.
The Wright Company also provided numerous other specialty furnishings to the Capitol. In early 1885 they designed and installed an office table and a black walnut mantel featuring art tiles and outfitted with brass andirons. They supplied numerous pieces of carpeting throughout the late 1880s, and in 1916, fabricated an elegant pedestal to hold a bust of John C. Pierce, Michigan’s first Superintendent of Public Instruction.
But the Wright Company’s primary association with the Capitol has always been the decorative art applied 1885-1890. Sadly, much of the original art was covered over in the 20th century, the victim of changing tastes and styles. This led to a now-legendary misconception at the beginning of the Capitol’s 1987-1992 restoration that all secondary rooms were probably originally painted using the same colors and patterns. But once investigations began, contractors rediscovered dozens of different colors, patterns, and a wide variety of techniques! After a major financial readjustment, the project launched and ultimately over nine acres of hand-painted art was conserved or accurately restored.
Today the work of caring for the Wright’s Company art and designs continues. Learn more about our current decorative painting project.
Sources: “Annual Report of the Board of State Auditors of the State of Michigan for the Year 1867.” Essay. In Joint Documents, 66. Lansing, MI: John A. Kerr & Co., Printers to the State, 1867.
Annual Report of the Board of State Auditors for the State of Michigan for the Year 1885. Lansing, MI: Thorp & Godfrey, State Printers and Binders, 1886, p. 365.
Holt, Henry H. “History of Michigan’s Portrait of General Lafayette.” Essay. In Collections and Researches Made by the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society Vol. XXVI, First ed., Vol. XXVI: p. 298–301. Lansing, MI: Robert Smith & Co., 1896.
Public Acts and Joint and Concurrent Resolutions of the Legislature of the State of Michigan, Passed at the Regular Session of 1885. Lansing, MI: W.S. George & Co. State Printers and Binders, 1885.
Public Acts and Joint and Concurrent Resolutions of the Legislature of the State of Michigan, Passed at the Regular Session of 1887. Lansing, MI: Thorp & Godfrey, State Printers and Binders, 1887.
Public Acts and Joint and Concurrent Resolutions of the Legislature of the State of Michigan, Passed at the Regular Session of 1889. Lansing, MI: Darius D. Thorp, State Printer and Binder, 1889.
“Robert Aitken’s Bust of ‘Father’ Pierce.” Bulletin of the Detroit Museum of Art Vol. 10, no. No. 8 (April 1916): p. 7–8.
“What the Legislators Think of Their New Home.” [Detroit] Post and Tribune. January 3, 1879.
United States Customs House and Post Office Building (Detroit – 1898)
Photos Courtesy Detroit Public Library, Burton Historical Collection
Status: Building no longer exists, demolished in 1931. “Million Dollar Courtroom” still exists after being disassembled and moved into the Levin Courthouse in the 1930s.
Today considered a missing architectural masterpiece, the old Federal Building and Post Office was a short-lived Detroit icon. Constructed from 1891-1897, it housed the post office, customs house, internal revenue offices, federal courts, and offices for the district attorney, U.S. Marshal, Lighthouse Board, Weather Bureau, Civil Service Commission, and others.
In 1898, supervising architect James Knox Taylor awarded the contract for the building’s interior decoration to the local William Wright Co. for $11,333. They had five months to decoratively paint the post-office, courtrooms, and other spaces.
It is possible – but not confirmed – that the Wright Company played a minor role in decorating the famous “Million Dollar Courtroom,” originally home to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. This “Palace of Justice” featured numerous marbles provided by the Grant Marble Co. of Milwaukee. Marble covered nearly every surface, except the ceiling, which one newspaper article described as being “plain white.” The courtroom was dedicated in May 1899, more than a year after the decorative paint contract was let (and long after the intended five-month period).
Ultimately the building once deemed “too big,” ceased to be big enough. It fell to the wrecking ball in 1931. Thankfully, Judge Arthur Tuttle successfully lobbied to deconstruct and reinstall the gorgeous marble courtroom in the subsequent federal courthouse. Recent post restoration photographs show some decoratively painted courtroom art, which could have been designed to mimic Wright Co. work in the previous building.
Sources: “The Beautiful Circuit Court Room of the Federal Building.” The [Detroit] Free Press. May 14, 1899.
“Old Federal Building.” The [Detroit] Free Press. May 21, 1898.
Wright, Carroll D., and Oren W. Weaver, eds. Bulletin of the Department of Labor, p. 664. Vol. Vol. III. Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1898.