Stories in Stone: The Texas State Capitol 1882-1888

Dan Scott
MSHP '20
Departmental Report

Stories in Stone exhibits an alternative methodology to investigating the multi-layered histories embedded in the built environment. This project analyzes the history of the Texas State Capitol from the perspective of its character-defining rough stone exterior. The Limestone-Granite Controversy of 1884 proved to be a defining moment in the history of the capitol construction and resonated through the quarries, laborers, politics, construction technology, and local communities. The existing historiography of the capitol explores most of the political and broader labor histories with minimal attention afforded to the significance of the stone. This project focuses on the stone as the intersecting artifact to provide a history of the capitol from an alternative perspective. It also exhibits the stone quarrying and construction technologies utilized in the building of the capitol. A network of railroads, labor infrastructure, quarry machinery, and capitol construction technologies are their own constituent material history that reveal the scale of operations necessary to complete such a large edifice in a comparably short time.The complex histories of the quarries and their community impact are situated alongside similar stories of skilled stonecutters and their descendants. This project provides the viewer with a different historical interpretation of the built environment through material investigation.

Advising committee: Benjamin Ibarra Sevilla, Sarah Lopez, Gilbert Beall, Kathleen Conti