Capitol of the Commonwealth
Exploring the 120 year history of Kentucky's Statehouse.
Nestled in the bluegrass hills of Kentucky, where there river forms an “S”, a massive monument overlooks the sleepy Capital of the commonwealth. The fourth and final building to be known as the State Capitol is the result of nearly a decade’s worth of planning, design, and manual labor. Through artwork, sculptures, and a collection of artifacts, the building celebrates the history of the state and serves as a beacon of hope for the future generations of Kentuckians.
KENTUCKY’S STATE CAPITOL By David L. Buchta 128 pp. Arcadia Publishing $22 Historic photojournalism documenting the development of Kentucky’s State Capitol.
In “Kentucky’s State Capitol” which is a part of the “Images of America” series, David L. Buchta takes us on a journey through the history of this spectacular building. Starting with a brief history of the state itself, and the several buildings that preceded the one that stands today, Buchta dives into the planning, construction, and cultural impact of the Capitol.
After breaking ground in 1905, the capitol was completed and officially opened in the summer of 1910. It quickly became the pride of Frankfort and one of the most impressive buildings in the entire state. The completion of the adjacent Governor’s mansion in 1915 made the entire capitol complex all the more beautiful.
When we visited the capitol in the winter of 2016 it was undergoing another round of renovation. Scaffolding covered the entire face of the building and unfortunately it was not possible to enter. Through reading this book, Buchta served as a sort of private tour guide that took me behind the scenes of this building. My favorite parts of the book were the detailed descriptions of the meaning behind the murals and sculptures both inside and outside of the building. I learned a lot more from Buchta than I would have if I simply entered the building on my own and looked around.
In true “Images of America” fashion, Buchta’s book is full of historic photographs and well researched commentary that pays tribute to the people whose lives were touched by this building.
Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.
Check out some more stuff to read down below.
Most popular posts this month
- 2024
- Reinstalling Windows at 1am
- SQLite DB Migrations with PRAGMA user_version
- My Custom Miniflux CSS Theme
- How to Disable Wayland in Debian Testing
Recent Favorite Blog Posts
This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.
- The AGI economy is coming faster than you think from Freethink
- Rolling the ladder up behind us from Xe Iaso's blog
- In Praise of “Normal” Engineers from charity.wtf
- Reports of Bluesky's death have been greatly exaggerated from The Torment Nexus
- What Would a Kubernetes 2.0 Look Like from matduggan.com
- We Can Just Measure Things from Armin Ronacher's Thoughts and Writings
- The Gentle Singularity from Sam Altman
- Whale Watching from https://popagandhi.com/
Articles from blogs I follow around the net
How Many Mildliner Colours Are There Now?
I made a mildliner reference site to keep track of all the colours
via Robb Knight • Posts • Atom Feed June 27, 2025Resupply stablecoin lender exploited for $9.3 million
An attacker was able to exploit a vulnerability in a smart contract used by the Resupply stablecoin lender to extract about $9.3 million from the project. After depositing around $200,000, they were able to inflate the price of anoth…
via Web3 is Going Just Great June 27, 2025Self-driving is finally happening
I still remember how the car industry got all excited back in 2017 about how steering wheels would soon be obsolete. Every concept car then was a living room on wheels, seats facing inwards. The self-driving revolution was imminent, they said. Well, it …
via David Heinemeier Hansson June 27, 2025Generated by openring