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Stories in Stone: The Texas State Capitol 1882 - 1888

Daniel Scott

University of Texas at Austin

State Preservation Board of Texas

daniel.scott.arch@gmail.com

This discussion employs an alternative methodology to investigating the multi-layered histories embedded in the built environment. Conventional narratives of the capitol focus on political events, but close attention to the Limestone-Granite Controversy of 1884 allows for the telling of alternate and marginalized histories. By analyzing the history of the Texas statehouse through its stone construction; the Limestone-Granite Controversy of 1884 proved to be a defining moment in the history of the capitol and resonated through the quarry communities, laborers, politics, construction technology, in pervasive ways. Key figures and broader convict and social labor histories are depicted with minimal attention afforded to the significance of the construction materials. This project seeks to focus on the stone as the intersecting artifact to uncover an alternative history of the Texas State Capitol.

The granite and limestone exterior embodies a complex multi-facetted history that is exposed on the surface of the building. The type of stone tells a story of that specific quarry history, landscape, and its community impact and perception. The people and how and what tools they used had a lasting effect on the built environment. These textured tooling marks and rough chiseled rock-pitch face stone are direct connections to the skilled stonecutters and convict laborers that shaped the stone for such a monumental building. The Limestone-Granite Controversy and the subsequent change of construction stone type reveals an alternative historic landscape for the Texas State Capitol.

Daniel Scott works with the State Preservation Board of Texas as a Project Design Specialist coordinating and performing preservation projects at the Texas State Capitol, Capitol grounds, Old General Land Office, Governor's Mansion, and the Texas State Cemetery. Daniel also teaches the Adaptive Reuse Advanced Studio in the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin. His academic research centers around the exploration of material ecologies and reciprocal landscapes in architecture. His professional experience ranges from architectural design and 3D modeling to hands-on stone carving and conservation.