October 1981
Dear
I am with Jean in the waiting room doing crossword puzzles, reading the paper, and getting hungry! Bill got off in the rain and fog yesterday – called last night to say he’s in Washington ok. We saw Steve at the airport. He came up for the homecoming weekend in Madison.
Love, Dede
State Street Mall – Civic Center, Madison, Wisconsin. Looking toward the State Capitol
The Capital building in Madison, Wisconsin, was completed in 1917. The architect was George Post of New York and it cost $7.25 million to build. It is 284 ft, 5 in. to the top of the dome, three feet shorter than the capital building in Washington, DC.
The white granite on the outside is from Vermont and makes the dome the only granite dome in the United States. It is the also the largest dome by volume in the United States and one of the largest in the world. Inside the rotunda there is marble from Greece, Algeria, Italy and France; limestone from Minnesota; red granite from Wisconsin.
It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2001
The statue on top of the dome is a sculpture by Daniel Chester French. He also did Abraham Lincoln of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. It is called “Wisconsin” and is a woman dressed in Greek fashion with an arm reaching out to symbolize the state motto – Forward. There is a badger on top of her helmet and she holds a globe with an eagle on top in her left hand. The eagle has a “W” on its chest.
The square surrounding the capital holds the farmer’s market every weekend, weather permitting, as well as three museums, a gourmet cheese shop and several restaurants. The Children’s Museum, the Wisconsin Veterans Museum and the Wisconsin Historical Museum are all on the square. The Veterans Museum is especially interesting. It takes you through the wars Wisconsin citizens have participated in over the past 150 years and includes many personal artifacts and souvenirs.
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