Capital Arts Fest: Tour the NH State House on Saturday the 25th
The Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce will welcome the public to the New Hampshire State House on Saturday, September 25 for complimentary guided tours. All tours will depart from the State House Visitor Center at 107 North Main Street every 30 minutes from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. This is part of the Capital Arts Fest weekend.
“Whether you’re a history enthusiast, or a local who has visited the State House numerous times on business, this tour will astound you with its rich narrative and all that still goes on here in New Hampshire’s capital city,” said Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce President Tim Sink. “This is a wonderful opportunity to draw visitors who may not realize that Concord has a very accessible downtown with lots of local shops and restaurants.”
The Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce will welcome visitors to the New Hampshire State House on Saturday, September 25 for complimentary guided tours that will depart from the State House Visitor Center at 107 North Main Street every 30 minutes from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. This is part of the Capital Arts Fest weekend.
In 2016, the Chamber conducted a successful pilot program that helped determine the demand and future possibility of weekend State House tours. Local businesses have provided “a very positive response,” said Sink.
The New Hampshire State House was built between 1816 and 1819 on land donated by the City of Concord, and constructed of granite taken from Concord’s Rattlesnake Hill and supplied at the city’s expense.. As the first substantial granite building in the state, the building stood as a showpiece for Concord’s booming granite industry. It was built according to designs by Stuart J. Park, then New England’s top expert on granite construction, and its stone was split and hammered by inmates at the state prison.
A close look ofatthe exterior of the building reveals the difference in quality of the original stone blocks of 1819 and the granite that was quarried from far below the surface when a third story and a rear addition were built in 1910.
By the beginning of the Civil War, the building of 1819 was too small for the work of state government. In 1863, the legislature authorized the governor to move ahead on plans for enlargement. The Boston architect Gridley J. F. Bryant provided plans for enlargement of the old building. As enlarged under Bryant’s plan, the State House was provided with a large and imposing dome to replace its smaller original cupola, with a two-story portico of monolithic granite columns, and with a then-stylish Mansard roof, which provided space for committee rooms above the original granite walls. Construction proceeded during the Civil War, with the State House temporarily losing its dome, and with new iron trusses and girders installed to support the massive new dome that caps the building today.
The building was again deemed too small again by 1900. In 1903, Governor Nahum Bachelder got preliminary plans from the Boston architectural firm of Peabody and Stearns for enlarging the structure.
The addition of 1909-10 houses the Governor and Council chamber and all the offices around it on each floor. This second remodeling replaced the Civil War-era Mansard roof on the older section of the building with a full third story, executed in Concord granite. To provide a visitors’ gallery for the House chamber, contractors had to cut away the solid masonry wall at the south side of Representatives’ Hall.
