Topeka, Kansas: The Capital City

As much as I like driving around Texas and exploring the little towns, I know that there's more to see in this country besides my home state. One of my goals is to visit the capital city for all 50 states and I just checked this one off. It's Topeka, Kansas!

These murals are becoming very popular and that makes me happy. I love them! 

I'd never been to Kansas proper. Several years ago, I think we stayed the night as we passed through on our way home. Then I had job in Kansas City but I stayed on the Missouri side. So this is really the first time that I've stayed here with intention.

Topeka is called the Capital City because it's the Capital of Kansas. This is the Kansas Statehouse at night. Kansas has an interesting history. It became a territory with the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. It allowed the citizens who lived in the territory to choose whether or not it would be a Slave State or a Free State. So, anti-slavery and pro-slavery settlers swarmed into the territory and began fighting leading to the nickname "Bleeding Kansas".

Topeka was established in 1854 by Cyrus Holliday along with eight other guys. They started the Topeka Town Association and Cyrus became the first mayor. In 1856, John and Mary Ritchie moved to Topeka and bought a huge plot of land. They built this house. Note the door on the second floor. Back then, you didn't have stairs inside. To get to the second floor, you'd have a ladder or a staircase on the outside of the house. This is the oldest house in Topeka.

John and Mary were abolitionists and their house was a stop on the Underground Railroad. The house next door belonged to their son Hale Ritchie. I thought the houses would have hiding places to demonstrate how travelers would have been hidden until they could move to the next station but they didn't. Still, the houses were historic and cool to see.

Kansas became a state in 1861 right before the Civil War got started. South Carolina had already seceded and other southern states would follow. When Kansas became a state, Topeka was named the capital. Unfortunately, a pesky little war got in the way of building their capitol.

On land donated by Cyrus Holliday, construction on the capitol began in 1866. As you can see by the photo, it was built in sections. The east wing was started in 1866 and the west wing was started in 1879. There was a little wind tunnel that connected the two buildings until 1886 when the central part of the building was begun. It took 37 years to construct this building. It opened in 1903.

This was what was originally going to be on top of the dome. It's the Roman goddess of agriculture, Ceres. But of course you've got your complainers. Somebody didn't approve of the goddesses moral compass and the project was scrapped. Nothing sat on top of the dome for a long time.

Looking up at the dome from the 1st floor. There's a chandelier up there that can be lowered to the first floor for cleaning and maintenance. It takes all day to lower it and then hoist it back up. It's only done if the chandelier requires maintenance.

There are tons of murals in the capitol. Each floor has them. This is the Battle of Arickaree by David Hicks Overmyer on the first floor.

Also on the first floor is this mural called Rebel Women by Phyllis Garibay-Coon. Down in the right hand corner, the artist painted in her mother to the scene. These are all women who contributed to Women's suffrage. Girl power!

This cage elevator is the "official cage elevator of the state of Kansas" and was installed in 1923. It is kept in working order at all times. It's down for maintenance. Our tour guide usually runs the elevator. That would be so cool to take a ride.

On the third floor are murals by John Steuart Curry. This one with the oversized John Brown is called Tragic Prelude.

The State Library in the Kansas Statehouse.

The House of Representatives. The Senate was actually in session so I didn't feel right about taking pics.

You can also do a dome tour at the capital. There are three levels and a total of 296 steps starting from the fifth floor, so if you climbed stairs do the 5th floor, those don't count. The first level, you're still inside the inner dome. You can see the chandelier. It's very cool. People back in the day would carve their names into the columns and along the walls. It wasn't until the 1970s that they passed a law against that.

This is the second level. We've left the inner dome and we're now in the outer dome. There's not much to see in this section but we're going to climb that last set of stairs to get to the top. That last set of stairs that goes into the spire of the dome is the creepiest as it doesn't appear that anything is supporting it. We lost several of the tour members at this level.

At the very top, you get magnificent views of the city. It's well worth the climb. But, it is windy up here! So hang on to your hats.

From the top, you can see across the Kansas River to the Great Overland Railroad Depot. It was a Union Pacific passenger depot built in 1927. It closed in 1980 and later became a museum. It's gorgeous!

This is the Brown v. Board of Education National Park Site. This is the Monroe School where Linda Brown as forced to attend. It's one of the five black elementary schools in Topeka. Oddly, only elementary schools were segregated. If you were "non-white", then you would have to go to and ESL school for four years before you could be "mainstreamed" into the white school. Meanwhile, Linda Brown had to pass several other white schools to come here. Now this school is a civil rights museum.

This is the classroom where Linda attended. There were five cases that were bundled together under Brown v. Board of Education. The end result of the case was the desegregation of schools, at least from a legal perspective. It took longer, especially in the south, to actually integrate schools.

Topeka is the fourth largest city in Kansas with about 126K people. The largest employer is the state of Kansas. I didn't see any national restaurant chains, though they did have all your standard fast food. We were there two nights and all the places we tried were good! We had a good time in Topeka. If you're in the area, I'd say it's well worth a visit just for the history alone.

Don't take my word for it. Check it out!