As this session of the state legislature begins to wind down, there have been some fiery debates at the capitol.
But this week is the 99th anniversary of the state capital in Charleston being on fire, literally.
In the first week of March in 1927, the so-called “Pasteboard Capitol” fire in Charleston happened. Once it started, within hours, the entire structure was reduced to ashes. It was the second time in just six years that West Virginia’s seat of government was destroyed by fire.
The “Pasteboard Capitol” got that nickname for good reason. After the previous West Virginia state capitol burned down in January 1921, the “Pasteboard Capitol” went up in just 42 days. It was a 166-room, wood-frame building made primarily of wood and wallboard, hence the nickname the “Pasteboard Capitol.”
The “Pasteboard Capitol” was right downtown, where the old Daniel Boone Hotel was later erected. There’s an office building, the 405 Capitol Street building, on that site now.
As the story goes, once the lot was sold after the fire in 1927, more deals were made by state legislators in the Daniel Boone Hotel’s bar than had ever occurred at the “Pasteboard Capitol.”
Thankfully, no was hurt or died in the fire. Most of state’s critical records weren’t lost either, because most had already been moved to the newly completed West Wing of the current capitol or were safely stored in the nearby Capitol Annex.
With the “Pasteboard Capitol” destroyed by fire, the race to finish the current capitol accelerated.
The current West Virginia Capitol opened on June 20, 1932, our state’s 69th birthday. The final cost was just under $10 million, an enormous sum at the time, considering it was during the absolute depth of the depression, when the Dow Jones was hitting historical lows and the unemployment rate was at 25 percent.
The cost to build it today would be staggering. Adjusted for inflation,
$10 million in 1930 would be worth $195 million now. Construction costs for a building of that scale and quality, with its 23-karat gold leaf, Imperial Danby marble, and hand-carved limestone, would easily put the final bill somewhere in the neighborhood of between $500 million and $1 billion.
That’s a neighborhood West Virginians don’t live in and rarely even visit.
And it’s a long way from the old “Pasteboard Capitol” that blazed its way into the dust, and cinders, of history, 99 years ago this week.