Today is the 175th anniversary of the day the first capitol building in Montgomery was handed over to the state...on 12/6/1847.
The completed building was presented to the state at the beginning of the legislature’s
first-ever biennial session.
But it didn't last long. The building was destroyed by fire two years
later (on 12-14-1849. The Alabama Pioneers site online provides details about the cause:
“The committee on the State Capitol, to whom was referred the resolution instructing them to inquire into the cause of the fire, which caused the destruction of the State Capitol, instruct me to report that they have made examination and inquiries on the subject, and are of the opinion that the fire was communicated from the flue or chimney to a timber, the end of which had been inserted in, and rested on an eyelet hole, left for that purpose in the wall of the Representative Hall. Your committee have been unable to hear of any person having been injured by the fire, and have heard of no one missing.
The replacement building, still very much standing, was built two years later on the same
foundation as the one that burned.
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