Indiana became a state in 1816, the capital was located in Corydon. The first capitol building was a humble, two-story limestone building constructed in 1813 to house the legislature of the Indiana Territory. The building was constructed by a company owned by Dennis Pennington, a member of the early territorial legislature. Construction cost $1,500, paid for by the citizens of Harrison County, and was completed in three years. It measured forty-feet square with walls two-feet-thick and ten-foot ceilings. The building at the time of its completion, was one of the largest buildings in the state.
Located in the Norman upland with The Mitchel Pain to either side, the capital building is constructed of St. Louis and Ste. Genevieve limestone. The Ste. Genevieve limestone was dug from the bed of Indian Creek and the St. Louis Limestone was quarried at New Salisbury, north of Corydon. The window sills and lintels are made of St. Louis Limestone.
Ste. Genevieve limestone was sought by east coast cities because it was paler than Salem limestone. Cavities of Ste. Genevieve limestone usually contain a lining of pink dolomite crystals.
In the early 1800s Edward Smith brought his family to settle the edge of a fertile valley near a large spring, the site of the present-day county fairgrounds. William Henry Harrison, Governor of the Indiana Territory, often stopped to rest at their home while travelling to and from Vincennes. Harrison chanced on the spot where Big Indian Creek and Little Indian Creek join to become the Indian Creek. Tradition says he decided to build a town there and asked Edward Smith's daughter, Jenny, to name it. She chose the name Corydon from Harrison's favorite hymn, the Pastoral Elegy.
The Mississippian age rocks that make up this region are mostly siltstone rich in silica. More than 330 million years ago, these rocks were then part of a vast delta system but now make up the bedrock known as the Borden Group, a collection of resistant rock types that form the Norman Upland. The Norman Upland is joined on the west by the Mitchell Plain, an area of relatively low relief that is pockmarked by sinkholes and underlain by extensive cave systems developed in the Mississippian age limestone bedrock.
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Describe the look of the limestone. Texture, color, size?
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Compare the limestone on the window sills to the limestone on the rest of the building. What is similar? What is different?
Sources:
Wikipedia
Roadside Geology of Indiana fourth printing 6/2011